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(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 1 | My attention was drawn to the spots on my chest when I was in my bath, singing, if I remember rightly, the Toreador song from the opera Carmen. They were pink in colour, rather like the first faint flush of dawn, and I viewed them with concern. I am not a fussy man, but I do object to being freckled like a pard, as I once heard Jeeves describe it, a pard, I take it, being something in the order of one of those dogs beginning with d.
'Jeeves,' I said at the breakfast table, 'I've got spots on my chest.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Pink.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'I don't like them.'
'A very understandable prejudice, sir. Might I enquire if they itch?'
'Sort of.'
'I would not advocate scratching them.'
'I disagree with you. You have to take a firm line with spots. Remember what the poet said.'
'Sir?'
'The poet Ogden Nash. The poem he wrote defending the practice of scratching. Who was Barbara Frietchie, Jeeves?'
'A lady of some prominence in the American war between the States, sir.'
'A woman of strong character? One you could rely on?'
'So I have always understood, sir.'
'Well, here's what the poet Nash wrote. "I'm greatly attached to Barbara Frietchie. I'll bet she scratched when she was itchy." But I shall not be content with scratching. I shall place myself in the hands of a competent doctor.'
'A very prudent decision, sir.'
The trouble was that, except for measles when I was just starting out, I've always been so fit that I didn't know any doctors. Then I remembered that my American pal, Tipton Plimsoll, with whom I had been dining last night to celebrate his betrothal to Veronica, only daughter of Colonel and Lady Hermione Wedge of Blandings Castle, Shropshire, had mentioned one who had once done him a bit of good. I went to the telephone to get his name and address.
Tipton did not answer my ring immediately, and when he did it was to reproach me for waking him at daybreak. But after he had got this off his chest and I had turned the conversation to mine he was most helpful. It was with the information I wanted that I returned to Jeeves.
'I've just been talking to Mr Plimsoll, Jeeves, and everything is straight now. He bids me lose no time in establishing contact with a medico of the name of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd. He says if I want a sunny practitioner who will prod me in the ribs with his stethoscope and tell me an anecdote about two Irishmen named Pat and Mike and then another about two Scotsmen named Mac and Sandy, E. Jimpson is not my man, but if what I'm after is someone to cure my spots, he unquestionably is, as he knows his spots from A to Z and has been treating them since he was so high. It seems that Tipton had the same trouble not long ago and Murgatroyd fixed him up in no time. So while I am getting out of these clothes into something more spectacular will you give him a buzz and make an appointment.'
When I had doffed the sweater and flannels in which I had breakfasted, Jeeves informed me that E. Jimpson could see me at eleven, and I thanked him and asked him to tell the garage to send the car round at ten-forty-five.
'Somewhat earlier than that, sir,' he said, 'if I might make the suggestion. The traffic. Would it not be better to take a cab?'
'No, and I'll tell you why. After I've seen the doc, I thought Imight drive down to Brighton and get a spot of sea air. I don't suppose the traffic will be any worse than usual, will it?'
'I fear so, sir. A protest march is taking place this morning.'
'What, again? They seem to have them every hour on the hour these days, don't they?'
'They are certainly not infrequent, sir.'
'Any idea what they're protesting about?'
'I could not say, sir. It might be one thing or it might be another. Men are suspicious, prone to discontent. Subjects still loathe the present Government.'
'The poet Nash?'
'No, sir. The poet Herrick.'
'Pretty bitter.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I wonder what they had done to him to stir him up like that. Probably fined him five quid for failing to abate a smoky chimney.'
'As to that I have no information, sir.'
Seated in the old sports model some minutes later and driving to keep my tryst with E. Jimpson Murgatroyd, I was feeling singularly light-hearted for a man with spots on his chest. It was a beautiful morning, and it wouldn't have taken much to make me sing Tra-la as I bowled along. Then I came abaft of the protest march and found myself becalmed. I leaned back and sat observing the proceedings with a kindly eye. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 2 | Whatever these bimbos were protesting about, it was obviously something they were taking to heart rather. By the time I had got into their midst not a few of them had decided that animal cries were insufficient to meet the case and were saying it with bottles and brickbats, and the police who were present in considerable numbers seemed not to be liking it much. It must be rotten being a policeman on these occasions. Anyone who has got a bottle can throw it at you, but if you throw it back, the yell of police brutality goes up and there are editorials in the papers next day.
But the mildest cop can stand only so much, and it seemed to me, for I am pretty shrewd in these matters, that in about another shake of a duck's tail hell's foundations would be starting to quiver. I hoped nobody would scratch my paint.
Leading the procession, I saw with surprise, was a girl I knew. In fact, I had once asked her to marry me. Her name was Vanessa Cook, and I had met her at a cocktail party, and such was her radiant beauty that it was only a couple of minutes after I had brought her a martini and one of those little sausages on sticks that I was saying to myself, 'Bertram, this is a good thing. Push it along.' And in due season I suggested a merger. But apparently I was not the type, and no business resulted.
This naturally jarred the Wooster soul a good deal at the moment, but reviewing the dead past now I could see that my guardian angel had been on the job all right and had known what was good for me. I mean, radiant beauty is all very well, but it isn't everything. What sort of a married life would I have had with the little woman perpetually going on protest marches and expecting me to be at her side throwing bottles at the constabulary? It made me shudder to think what I might have let myself in for if I had been a shade more fascinating. Taught me a lesson, that did – viz. never to lose faith in your guardian angel, because these guardian angels are no fools.
Vanessa Cook was accompanied by a beefy bloke without a hat in whom I recognized another old acquaintance, O. J. (Orlo) Porter to wit, who had been on the same staircase with me at Oxford. Except for borrowing an occasional cup of sugar from one another and hulloing when we met on the stairs we had never been really close, he being a prominent figure at the Union, where I was told he made fiery far-to-the-left speeches, while I was more the sort that is content just to exist beautifully.
Nor did we get together in our hours of recreation, for his idea of a good time was to go off with a pair of binoculars and watch birds, a thing that has never appealed to me. I can't see any percentage in it. If I meet a bird, I wave a friendly hand at it, to let it know that I wish it well, but I don't want to crouch behind a bush observing its habits. So, as I say, Orlo Porter was in no sense a buddy of mine, but we had always got on all right and I still saw him every now and then.
Everybody at Oxford had predicted a pretty hot political future for him, but it hadn't got started yet. He was now in the employment of the London and Home Counties Insurance Company and earned the daily b. by talking poor saps – I was one of them – into taking out policies for larger amounts than they would have preferred. Making fiery far-to-the-left speeches naturally fits a man for selling insurance, enabling him to find the mot juste and enlarging the vocabulary. I for one had been corn before his sickle, as the expression is.
The bottle-throwing had now reached the height of its fever and I was becoming more than ever nervous about my paint, when all of a sudden there occurred an incident which took my mind off that subject. The door of the car opened and what the papers call a well-nourished body, male, leaped in and took a seat beside me. Gave me a bit of a start, I don't mind admitting, the Woosters not being accustomed to this sort of thing so soon after breakfast. I was about to ask to what I was indebted for the honour of this visit, when I saw that what I had drawn was Orlo Porter and I divined that after the front of the procession had passed from my view he must have said or done something which London's police force could not overlook, making instant flight a must. His whole demeanour was that of the hart that pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase.
Well, you don't get cooling streams in the middle of the metropolis, but there was something I could do to give his morale a shot in the arm. I directed his attention to the Drones Club scarf lying on the seat, at the same time handing him my hat. He put them on, and the rude disguise proved effective. Various rozzers came along, but they were looking for a man without a hat and he was definitely hatted, so they passed us by. Of course, I was bareheaded, but one look at me was enough to tell them that this polished boulevardier could not possibly be the dubious character they were after. And a few minutes later the crowd had melted.
'Drive on, Wooster,' said Orlo. 'Get a move on, blast you.'
He spoke irritably, and I remembered that he had always been an irritable chap, as who would not have been, having to go through life with a name like Orlo, and peddling insurance when he had hoped to electrify the House of Commons with his molten eloquence. I took no umbrage, accordingly, if umbrage is the thing you take when people start ordering you about, making allowances for his state of mind. I drove on, and he said 'Phew' and removed a bead of persp. from the brow.
I hardly knew what to do for the best. He was still panting like a hart, and some fellows when panting like harts enjoy telling you all about it, while others prefer a tactful silence. I decided to take a chance.
'Spot of trouble?' I said.
'Yes.'
'Often the way during these protest marches. What happened?'
'I socked a cop.'
I could see why he was a bit emotional. Socking cops is a thing that should be done sparingly, if at all. I resumed the quiz.
'Any particular reason? Or did it just seem a good idea at the time?'
He gnashed a tooth or two. He was a red-headed chap, and my experience of the red-headed is that you can always expect high blood pressure from them in times of stress. The first Queen Elizabeth had red hair, and look what she did to Mary Queen of Scots.
'He was arresting the woman I love.'
I could understand how this might well have annoyed him. I have loved a fair number of women in my time, though it always seems to wear off after a while, and I should probably have drained the bitter cup a bit if I had seen any of them pinched by the police.
'What had she done?'
'She was heading the procession with me and shouting a good deal as always happens on these occasions when the emotions of a generous girl are stirred. He told her to stop shouting. She said this was a free country and she was entitled to shout as much as she pleased. He said not if she was shouting the sort of things she was shouting, and she called him a Cossack and socked him. Then he arrested her, and I socked him.'
A pang of pity for the stricken officer passed through me. Orlo, as I have said, was well nourished, and Vanessa was one of those large girls who pack a hefty punch. A cop socked by both of them would have entertained no doubt as to his having been in a fight.
But this was not what was occupying my thoughts. At the words 'she was heading the procession with me' I had started visibly. It seemed to me that, coupled with that 'woman I love' stuff, they could mean only one thing.
'Good Lord,' I said. 'Is Vanessa Cook the woman you love?'
'She is.'
'Nice girl,' I said, for there is never any harm in giving the old salve. 'And, of course, radiant-beauty-wise in the top ten.'
A moment later I was regretting that I had pitched it so strong, for the effect on Orlo was most unpleasant. His eyes bulged, at the same time flashing, as if he were on the verge of making a fiery far-to-the-left speech.
'You know her?' he said, and his voice was low and guttural, like that of a bulldog which has attempted to swallow a chump chop and only got it down half-way.
I saw that I would do well to watch my step, for it was evident that what I have heard Jeeves call the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on was beginning to feel the rush of life beneath its keel. You never know what may happen when the g.-e. m. takes over.
'Slightly,' I said. 'Very slightly. We just met for a moment at some cocktail party or other.'
'That was all?'
'That was all.'
'You were not – how shall I put it? – in any sense intimate?'
'No, no. Simply on Good-morning-good-morning-lovely-morning- is-it-not terms if I happened to run into her in the street.'
'Nothing more?'
'Nothing more.'
I had said the right thing. He went off the boil, and when he next spoke, it was without bulldog and chump chop effects.
'You call her a nice girl. That puts in a nutshell my own opinion of her.'
'And she, I imagine, thinks highly of you?'
'Correct.'
'You're engaged, possibly?'
'Yes.'
'Many happy returns.'
'But we can't get married because of her father.'
'He objects?'
'Strongly.'
'But surely you don't have to have Father's consent in these enlightened days?'
A look of pain came into his face and he writhed like an electric fan. It was plain that my words had touched a sore s.
'You do if he is trustee for your money and you don't make enough at your job to marry on. My Uncle Joe left me enough to get married to twenty girls. He was Vanessa's father's partner in one of those big provision businesses. But I can't touch it because he made old Cook my trustee, and Cook refuses to part.'
'Why?'
'He disapproves of my political views. He says he has no intention of encouraging any damned Communists.'
I think at this juncture I may have looked askance at him a bit. I hadn't realized that that was what he was, and it rather shocked me, because I'm not any too keen on Communists. However, he was my guest, so to speak, so I merely said that that must have been unpleasant, and he said Yes, very unpleasant, adding that only Cook's grey hairs had saved him from getting plugged in the eye, which shows that it's not such a bad thing to let your hair go grey.
'And in addition to disliking my political views he considers that I have led Vanessa astray. He has heard about her going on these protest marches, and he considers me responsible. But for me, he says, she would never have done such a thing, and that if she ever made herself conspicuous and got her name in the papers, she would come straight home and stay there. He has a big house in the country with a stable of racehorses, as he can well afford to after his years of grinding the faces of the widow and the orphan.'
I could have corrected him here, pointing out that you don't grind people's faces by selling them pressed beef and potato chips at a lower price than they would be charged elsewhere, but, as I say, he was my guest, so I refrained. I was conscious of a passing thought that Vanessa Cook would not be remaining long in London now that she had developed this habit of socking policemen, but I did not share this with Orlo Porter, not wishing to rub salt into the wound.
'But let's not talk about it any more,' he said, closing the subject with a bang. 'You can drop me anywhere round here. Thanks for the ride.'
'Don't mention it.'
'Where are you going?'
'Harley Street, to see a doctor. I've got spots on my chest.'
The effect of this disclosure was rather remarkable. A keen go-getter look came into his face, and I could seem that Orlo Porter the lover had been put in storage for the time being, his place taken by Orlo Porter the zealous employee of the London and Home Counties Insurance Company.
'Spots?' he said.
'Pink,' I said.
'Pink spots,' he said. 'That's serious. You'd better take out a policy with me.'
I reminded him that I had already done so. He shook his head.
'Yes, yes, yes, but that was only for accidents. What you must have now is a life policy, and most fortunately,' he said, drawing papers from his pocket like a conjuror taking rabbits from a hat, 'I happen to have one on me. Sign here, Wooster,' he said, this time producing a fountain pen.
And such was his magnetism that I signed there. He registered approval.
'You have done the wise thing, Wooster. Whatever the doctor may tell you when you see him, however brief your span of life, it will be a comfort to you to know that your widow and the little ones are provided for. Drop me here, Wooster.'
I dropped him, and drove on to Harley Street. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 3 | In spite of being held up by the protest march I was a bit early for my appointment, and was informed on arrival that the medicine man was tied up for the moment with another gentleman. I took a seat and was flitting idly through the pages of an Illustrated London News of the previous December when the door of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd's private lair opened and there emerged an elderly character with one of those square, empire-building faces, much tanned as if he was accustomed to sitting out in the sun without his parasol. Seeing me, he drank me in for a while and then said 'Hullo', and conceive my emotion when I recognized him as Major Plank the explorer and Rugby football aficionado, whom I had last seen at his house in Gloucestershire when he was accusing me of trying to get five quid out of him under false pretences. A groundless charge, I need scarcely say, self being as pure as the driven snow, if not purer, but things had got a bit difficult and the betting was that they would become difficult now. I sat waiting for him to denounce me and was wondering what the harvest would be, when he spoke, to my astonishment, in the most bonhomous way, as if we were old buddies.
'We've met before. I never forget a face. Isn't your name Allen or Allenby or Alexander or something?'
'Wooster,' I said, relieved to the core. I had been anticipating a painful scene. He clicked his tongue. 'I could have sworn it was something beginning with Al. It's this malaria of mine. Picked it up in Equatorial Africa, and it affects my memory. So you've changed your name, have you? Secret enemies after you?'
'No, no secret enemies.'
'That's generally why one changes one's name. I had to change mine that time I shot the chief of the 'Mgombis. In self-defence, of course, but that made no difference to his widows and surviving relatives who were looking for me. If they had caught me, they would have roasted me alive over a slow fire, which is a thing one always wants to avoid. But I baffled them. Plank was the man they were trying to contact, and it never occurred to them that somebody called George Bernard Shaw could be the chap they were after. They are not very bright in those parts. Well, Wooster, how have you been since we last met? Pretty bobbish?'
'Oh, fine, thanks, except that I've got spots on my chest.'
'Spots? That's bad. How many?'
I said I had not actually taken a census, but there were quite a few, and he shook his head gravely.
'Might be bubonic plague or possibly sprue or schistosomiasis. One of my native bearers got spots on his chest, and we buried him before sundown. Had to. Delicate fellows, these native bearers, though you wouldn't think so to look at them. Catch everything that's going around – sprue, bubonic plague, schistosomiasis, jungle fever, colds in the head – the lot. Well, Wooster, it's been nice seeing you again. I would ask you to lunch, but I have a train to catch. I'm off to the country.'
He left me, as you may imagine, in something of a twitter. Bertram Wooster, as is well known, is intrepid and it takes a lot to scare the pants off him. But his talk of native bearers who had to be buried before sundown had caused me not a little anxiety. Nor did the first sight of E. Jimpson Murgatroyd do anything to put me at my ease. Tipton had warned me that he was a gloomy old buster, and a gloomy old buster was what he proved to be. He had sad, brooding eyes and long whiskers, and his resemblance to a frog which had been looking on the dark side since it was a slip of a tadpole sent my spirits right down into the basement.
However, as so often happens when you get to know a fellow better, he turned out to be not nearly as pessimistic a Gawd-help-us as he appeared to be at first sight. By the time he had weighed me and tied that rubber thing round my biceps and felt my pulse and tapped me all over like a whiskered woodpecker he had quite brightened up and words of good cheer were pouring out of him like ginger beer from a bottle.
'I don't think you have much to worry about,' he said.
'You don't?' I said, considerably bucked up. 'Then it isn't sprue or schistosomiasis?'
'Of course it is not. What gave you the idea it might be?'
'Major Plank said it might. The chap who was in here before me.'
'You shouldn't listen to people, especially Plank. We were at school together. Barmy Plank we used to call him. No, the spots are of no importance. They will disappear in a few days.'
'Well, that's a relief,' I said, and he said he was glad I was pleased.
'But,' he added.
This chipped a bit off my joie de vivre.
'But what?'
He was looking like a minor prophet about to rebuke the sins of the people – it was the whiskers that did it mostly, though the eyebrows helped. I forgot to mention that he had bushy eyebrows – and I could see that this was where I got the bad news.
'Mr Wooster,' he said, 'you are a typical young man about town.'
'Oh, thanks,' I responded, for it sounded like a compliment, and one always likes to say the civil thing.
'And like all young men of your type you pay no attention to your health. You drink too much.'
'Only at times of special revelry. Last night, for instance, I was helping a pal to celebrate the happy conclusion of love's young dream, and it may be that I became a mite polluted, but that rarely happens. One Martini Wooster, some people call me.'
He paid no attention to my frank manly statement, but carried on regardless.
'You smoke too much. You stay up too late at night. You don't get enough exercise. At your age you ought to be playing Rugby football for the old boys of your school.'
'I didn't go to a Rugger school.'
'Where did you go?'
'Eton.'
'Oh,' he said, and he said it as if he didn't think much of Eton. 'Well, there you are. You do all the things I have said.
You abuse your health in a hundred ways. Total collapse may come at any moment.'
'At any moment?' I quavered.
'At any moment. Unless –'
'Unless?' Now, I felt, he was talking.
'Unless you give up this unwholesome London life. Go to the country. Breathe pure air. Go to bed early. And get plenty of exercise. If you do not do this, I cannot answer for the consequences.'
He had shaken me. When a doctor, even if whiskered, tells you he cannot answer for the consequences, that's strong stuff. But I was not dismayed, because I had spotted a way of following his advice without anguish. Bertram Wooster is like that. He thinks on his feet.
'Would it be all right,' I asked, 'if I went to stay with my aunt in Worcestershire?'
He weighed the question, scratching his nose with his stethoscope. He had been doing this at intervals during our get-together, being evidently one of the scratchers, like Barbara Frietchie. The poet Nash would have taken to him.
'I see no objection to your staying with your aunt, provided the conditions are right. Whereabouts in Worcestershire does she live?'
'Near a town called Market Snodsbury.'
'Is the air pure there?'
'Excursion trains are run for people to breathe it.'
'Your life would be quiet?'
'Practically unconscious.'
'No late hours?'
'None. The early dinner, the restful spell with a good book or the crossword puzzle and so to bed.'
'Then by all means do as you suggest.'
'Splendid. I'll ring her up right away.'
The aunt to whom I alluded was my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia, not to be confused with my Aunt Agatha who eats broken bottles and is strongly suspected of turning into a werewolf at the time of the full moon. Aunt Dahlia is as good a sort as ever said 'Tally Ho' to a fox, which she frequently did in her younger days when out with the Quorn or Pytchley. If she ever turned into a werewolf, it would be one of those jolly breezy werewolves whom it is a pleasure to know.
It was very satisfactory that he had given me the green light without probing further, for an extended quiz might have revealed that Aunt Dahlia has a French cook who defies competition, and I need scarcely explain that the first thing a doctor does when you tell him you are going to a house where there's a French cook is to put you on a diet.
'Then that's that,' I said, all buck and joviality. 'Many thanks for your sympathetic co-operation. Lovely weather we are having, are we not? Good morning, good morning, good morning.'
And I slipped him a purse of gold and went off to phone Aunt Dahlia. I had given up all idea of driving to Brighton for lunch. I had stern work before me – viz. cadging an invitation from this aunt, sometimes a tricky task. In her darker moods, when some domestic upheaval is troubling her, she has been known to ask me if I have a home of my own and, if I have, why the hell I don't stay in it.
I got her after the delays inseparable from telephoning a remote hamlet like Market Snodsbury, where the operators are recruited exclusively from the Worcestershire branch of the Jukes family.
'Hullo, aged relative,' I began, as suavely as I could manage.
'Hullo to you, you young blot on Western civilization,' she responded in the ringing tones with which she had once rebuked hounds for taking time off to chase rabbits. 'What's on your mind, if any? Talk quick, because I'm packing.'
I didn't like the sound of this.
'Packing?' I said. 'Are you going somewhere?'
'Yes, to Somerset, to stay with friends of mine, the Briscoes.'
'Oh, curses.'
'Why?'
'I was hoping I might come to you for a short visit.'
'Well, sucks to you, young Bertie, you can't. Unless you'd like to rally round and keep Tom company.'
I h'm-ed at this. I am very fond of Uncle Tom, but the idea of being cooped up alone with him in his cabin didn't appeal to me. He collects old silver and is apt to hold you with a glittering eye and talk your head off about sconces and foliations and gadroon borders, and my interest in these is what you might call tepid. 'No,' I said. 'Thanks for the kind invitation, but I think I'll take a cottage somewhere.'
Her next words showed that she had failed to grasp the gist.
'What is all this?' she queried. 'I don't get it. Why have you got to go anywhere? Are you on the run from the police?'
'Doctor's orders.'
'What are you talking about? You've always been as fit as ten fiddles.'
'Until this morning, when spots appeared on my chest.'
'Spots?'
'Pink.'
'Probably leprosy.'
'The doc thinks not. His view is that they are caused by my being a typical young man about town who doesn't go to bed early enough. He says I must leg it to the country and breathe pure air, so I shall need a cottage.'
'With honeysuckle climbing over the door and old Mister Moon peeping in through the window?'
'That sort of thing. Any idea how one sets about getting a cottage of that description?'
'I'll find you one. Jimmy Briscoe has dozens. And Maiden Eggesford, where he lives, is not far from the popular seaside resort of Bridmouth-on-Sea, notorious for its invigorating air. Corpses at Bridmouth-on-Sea leap from their biers and dance round the maypole.'
'Sounds good.'
'I'll drop you a line when I've got the cottage. You'll like Maiden Eggesford. Jimmy has a racing stable, and there's a big meeting coming on soon at Bridmouth; so you'll have not only pure air but entertainment. One of Jimmy's horses is running, and most of the wise money is on it, though there is a school of thought that maintains that danger is to be expected from a horse belonging to a Mr Cook. And now for heaven's sake get off the wire. I'm busy.'
So far, I said to myself as I put back the receiver, so g. I would have preferred, of course, to be going to the aged relative's home, where Anatole her superb chef dished up his mouth-waterers, but we Woosters can rough it, and life in a country cottage with the aged r. just around the corner would be a very different thing from a country c. without her to come through with conversation calculated to instruct, elevate and amuse.
All that remained now was to break the news to Jeeves, and I rather shrank from the prospect.
You see, we had practically settled on a visit to New York, and I knew he was looking forward to it. I don't know what he does in New York, but whatever it is it's something he gets a big kick out of, and disappointment, I feared, would be inevitable.
'Jeeves,' I said when I had returned to the Wooster GHQ, 'I'm afraid I have bad news.'
'Indeed, sir? I am sorry to hear that.'
One of his eyebrows had risen about an eighth of an inch, and I knew he was deeply stirred, because I had rarely seen him raise an eyebrow more than a sixteenth of an inch. He had, of course, leaped to the conclusion that I was about to tell him that the medicine man had given me three months to live, or possibly two. 'Mr Murgatroyd's diagnosis was not encouraging?'
I hastened to relieve his apprehensions.
'Yes, as a matter of fact it was. Most encouraging. He said the spots qua spots... Is it qua?'
'Perfectly correct, sir.'
'His verdict was that the spots qua spots didn't amount to a row of beans and could be disregarded. They will pass by me like the idle wind which I respect not.'
'Extremely gratifying, sir.'
'Extremely, as you say. But pause before you go out and dance in the streets, because there's more to come. It was to this that I was alluding when I said I had bad news. I've got to withdraw to the country and lead a quiet life. He says if I don't, he cannot answer for the consequences. So I'm afraid New York is off.'
It must have been a severe blow, but he bore it with the easy nonchalance of a Red Indian at the stake. Not a cry escaped him, merely an 'Indeed, sir?', and I tried to point out the bright side.
'It's a disappointment for you, but it's probably an excellent thing. Everybody in New York is getting mugged these days or shot by youths, and being mugged and shot by youths doesn't do a fellow any good. We shall avoid all that sort of thing at Maiden Eggesford.'
'Sir?'
'Down in Somerset. Aunt Dahlia is visiting friends there and is going to get me a cottage. It's near Bridmouth-on-Sea. Have you ever been to Bridmouth?'
'Frequently, sir, in my boyhood, and I know Maiden Eggesford well. An aunt of mine lives there.'
'And an aunt of mine is going there. What a coincidence.'
I spoke blithely, for this obviously made everything hotsytotsy. He had probably been looking on beetling off to the country as going into the wilderness, and the ecstasy of finding that the first thing he would set eyes on would be a loved aunt must have been terrific.
So that was that. And having got the bad news broken, I felt at liberty to turn the conversation to other topics, and I thought he would be interested in hearing about my encounter with Plank.
'I got a shock at the doc's, Jeeves.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'Do you remember Major Plank?'
'The name seems vaguely familiar, sir, but only vaguely.'
'Throw the mind back. The explorer bloke who accused me of trying to chisel him out of five quid and was going to call the police, and you came along and said you were Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard and that I was a notorious crook whom you had been after for ages, and I was known as Alpine foe because I always wore an Alpine hat. And you took me away.'
'Ah, yes, sir, I remember now.'
'I ran into him this morning. He remembered my face, but nothing more except that he said he knew my name began with Al.'
'A most unnerving experience, sir.'
'Yes, it rattled me more than somewhat. It's a great relief to think that I shall never see him again.'
'I can readily understand your feelings, sir.'
In due course Aunt Dahlia rang to say that she had got a cottage for me and to let her know what day I would be arriving.
And so began what I suppose my biographers will refer to as The Maiden Eggesford Horror – or possibly The Curious Case Of The Cat Which Kept Popping Up When Least Expected. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 4 | I left for Maiden Eggesford a couple of days later in the old two-seater. Jeeves had gone on ahead with the luggage and would be there to greet me on my arrival, no doubt all braced and refreshed from communing with his aunt.
It was in jocund mood that I set forth. There were rather more astigmatic loonies sharing the road with me than I could have wished, but that did nothing to diminish my euphoria, as I have heard it called. The weather couldn't have been better, blue skies and sunshine all over the place, and to put the frosting on the cake E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had been one hundred per cent right about the spots. They had completely disappeared, leaving not a wrack behind, and the skin on my chest was back to its normal alabaster.
I reached journey's end at about the hour of the evening cocktail and got my first glimpse of the rural haven which was to be the Wooster home for I didn't know how long.
Well, I had had a sort of idea that there would be what they call subtle but well-marked differences between Maiden Eggesford and such resorts as Paris and Monte Carlo, and a glance told me I had not erred. It was one of those villages where there isn't much to do except walk down the main street and look at the Jubilee watering-trough and then walk up the main street and look at the Jubilee watering-trough from the other side. E. Jimpson Murgatroyd would have been all for it. 'Oh, boy,' I could hear him saying, 'this is the stuff to give the typical young man about town.' The air, as far as I could tell from the first few puffs, seemed about as pure as could be expected, and I looked forward to a healthy and invigorating stay.
The only thing wrong with the place was that it appeared to be haunted, for as I alighted from the car I distinctly saw the phantasm or wraith of Major Plank. It was coming out of the local inn, the Goose and Grasshopper, and as I gazed at it with bulging eyes it vanished round a corner, leaving me, I need scarcely say, in something of a twitter. I am not, as I mentioned earlier, a fussy man, but nobody likes to have spectres horsing around, and for a while my jocund mood became a bit blue about the edges.
I speedily pulled myself together. 'Twas but a momentary illusion, I said to myself. I reasoned the thing out. If Plank had come to a sticky end since I had seen him last and had started on a haunting career, I said to myself, why should he be haunting Maiden Eggesford when the whole of equatorial Africa was open to him? He would be much happier scaring the daylights out of natives whom he had cause to dislike – the widows and surviving relatives of the late chief of the 'Mgombis, for instance.
Fortified by these reflections, I went into the cottage.
A glance told me it was all right. I think it must have been built for an artist or somebody like that, for it had all the modern cons including electric light and the telephone, being in fact more a desirable bijou residence than a cottage.
Jeeves was there, and he brought me a much-needed refresher – in deference to E. Jimpson Murgatroyd a dry ginger ale. Sipping it, I decided to confide in him, for in spite of the clarity with which I had reasoned with myself I was still not altogether convinced that what I had seen had not been a phantom. True, it had looked solid enough, but I believe the best ghosts often do.
'Most extraordinary thing, Jeeves,' I said, 'I could have sworn I saw Major Plank coming out of the pub just now.'
'No doubt you did, sir. Major Plank would be quite likely to come to the village. He is the guest of Mr Cook of Eggesford Court.'
You could have knocked me down with a cheese straw.
'You mean he's here?'
'Yes, sir.'
I was astounded. When he had told me he was off to the country, I had naturally assumed that he meant he was returning to his home in Gloucestershire. Not, of course, that there's any reason why someone who lives in Gloucestershire shouldn't visit Somerset. Aunt Dahlia lives in Worcestershire, and she was visiting Somerset. You have to look at these things from every angle.
Nevertheless, I was perturbed.
'I'm not sure I like this, Jeeves.'
'No, sir?'
'He may remember what our last meeting was all about.'
'It should not be difficult to avoid him, sir.'
'Something in that. Still, what you say has given me a shock.
Plank is the last person I want in my neighbourhood. I think, as my nervous system has rather taken the knock, we might discard this ginger ale and substitute for it a dry martini.'
'Very good, sir.'
'Murgatroyd will never know.'
'Precisely, sir.'
And so, having breathed considerable quantities of pure air and taken a couple of refreshing looks at the Jubilee watering-trough, to bed early, as recommended by E. Jimpson Murgatroyd.
The result of this following of doctor's orders was sensational. Say what you might about his whiskers and his habit of looking as if he had been attending the funeral of a dear friend, E. Jimpson knew his job. After about ten hours of restful sleep I sprang from between the sheets, leaped to the bathroom, dressed with a song on my lips and headed for the breakfast table like a two-year-old. I had cleaned up the eggs and b., and got the toast and marmalade down the hatch to the last crumb with all the enthusiasm of a tiger of the jungle tucking into its ration of coolie, and was smoking a soothing cigarette, when the telephone rang and Aunt Dahlia's voice came booming over the wire.
'Hullo, old ancestor,' I said, and it was a treat to hear me, so full of ginger and loving kindness was my diction. 'A very hearty good morning to you, aged relative.'
'You've got here, have you?'
'In person.'
'So you're still alive. The spots didn't turn out to be fatal.'
'They've entirely disappeared,' I assured her. 'Gone with the wind.'
'That's good. I wouldn't have liked introducing a piebald nephew to the Briscoes, and they want you to come to lunch today.'
'Vastly civil of them.'
'Have you a clean collar?'
'Several, with immaculate shirts attached.'
'Don't wear that Drones Club tie.'
'Certainly not,' I agreed. If the Drones Club tie has a fault, it is a little on the loud side and should not be sprung suddenly on nervous people and invalids, and I had no means of knowing if Mrs Briscoe was one of these. 'What time is the binge?'
'One-thirty.'
'Expect me then with my hair in a braid.'
The invitation showed a neighbourly spirit which I applauded, and I said as much to Jeeves.
'They sound good eggs, these Briscoes.'
'I believe they give uniform satisfaction, sir.'
'Aunt Dahlia didn't say where they lived.'
'At Eggesford Hall, sir.'
'How does one get there?'
'One proceeds up the main street of the village to the high road, where one turns to the left. You cannot miss the house. It is large and stands in extensive grounds. It is a walk of about a mile and a half, if you were intending to walk.'
'I think I'd better. Murgatroyd would advise it. You, I take it, in my absence will go and hobnob with your aunt. Have you seen her yet?'
'No, sir. I learn from the lady behind the bar of the Goose and Grasshopper, where I looked in on the night of my arrival, that she has gone to Liverpool for her annual holiday.'
Liverpool, egad! Sometimes one feels that aunts live for pleasure alone.
I made an early start. If these Briscoes were courting my society, I wanted to give them as much of it as possible.
Reaching the high road, where Jeeves had told me to turn to the left, I thought I had better make sure. He had spoken confidently, but it is always well to get a second opinion. And by jove I found that he had goofed. I accosted a passing centenarian – everybody in Maiden Eggesford seemed to be about a hundred and fifty, no doubt owing to the pure air – and asked which way I turned for Eggesford Court, and he said to the right. It just showed how even Jeeves can be mistaken.
On one point, however, he had been correct. A large house, he had said, standing in extensive grounds, and I had been walking what must have been a mile and a half when I came in sight of just such a residence, standing in grounds such as he had described. There were gates opening on a long drive, and I was starting to walk up this, when it occurred to me that I could save time by cutting across country, because the house I could see through the trees was a good deal to the nor'-nor'- east. They make these drives winding so as to impress visitors. Bless my soul, the visitor says, this drive must be three-quarters of a mile long; shows how rich the chap is.
Whether I was singing or not I can't remember – more probably whistling – but be that as it may I made good progress, and I had just come abreast of what looked like stables when there appeared from nowhere a cat.
It was a cat of rather individual appearance, being black in its general colour scheme but with splashes of white about the ribs and also on the tip of its nose. I chirruped and twiddled my fingers, as is my custom on these occasions, and it advanced with its tail up and rubbed its nose against my leg in a manner that indicated clearly that in Bertram Wooster it was convinced that it had found a kindred soul and one of the boys.
Nor had its intuition led it astray. One of the first poems I ever learned – I don't know who wrote it, probably Shakespeare – ran:
I love little pussy; her coat is so warm;
And if I don't hurt her, she'll do me no harm; and that is how I have been all my life. Ask any cat with whom I have had dealings what sort of a chap I am cat-wise, and it will tell you that I am a thoroughly good egg in whom complete confidence can safely be placed.
Cats who know me well, like Aunt Dahlia's Augustus, will probably allude to my skill at scratching them behind the ear.
I scratched this one behind the ear, and it received the attention with obvious gratification, purring like the rumble of distant thunder. Cordial relations having now been established, I was proceeding to what you might call Phase Two – viz. picking it up in my arms in order to tickle its stomach – when the welkin was split by a stentorian 'Hi'.
There are many ways of saying 'Hi'. In America it is a pleasant form of greeting, often employed as a substitute for 'Good morning'. Two friends meet. One of them says 'Hi, Bill.' The other replies 'Hi, George.' Then Bill says 'Is this hot enough for you?', and George says that what he minds is not the heat but the humidity, and they go on their way.
But this 'Hi' was something very different. I believe the sort of untamed savages Major Plank mixes with do not go into battle shouting 'Hi', but if they did the sound would be just like the uncouth roar which had nearly shattered my eardrums. Turning, I perceived a red-faced little half-portion brandishing a hunting crop I didn't much like the look of. I have never been fond of hunting crops since at an early age I was chased for a mile across difficult country by an uncle armed with one, who had found me smoking one of his cigars. In frosty weather I can still feel the old wounds.
But now I wasn't really perturbed. This, I took it, was the Colonel Briscoe who had asked me to lunch, and though at the moment he had the air of one who would be glad to dissect me with a blunt knife, better conditions would be bound to prevail as soon as I mentioned my name. I mean, you don't ask a fellow to lunch and start assaulting and battering him as soon as he clocks in.
I mentioned it, accordingly, rather surprised by his size, for I had thought they made colonels somewhat larger. Still, I suppose they come in all sizes, like potatoes or, for the matter of that, girls. Vanessa Cook, for instance, was definitely on the substantial side, whereas others who had turned me down from time to time were practically midgets.
'Wooster, Bertram,' I said, tapping my chest.
I had anticipated an instant cooling of the baser passions, possibly a joyful cry and a 'How are you, my dear fellow, how are you?' accompanied by a sunny smile of welcome, but nothing of the sort occurred. He continued to effervesce, his face now a rather pretty purple.
'What are you doing with that cat?' he demanded hoarsely.
I preserved a dignified calm. I didn't like his tone, but then one often doesn't like people's tones.
'Merely passing the time of day,' I replied with a suavity that became me well.
'You were making away with it.'
'Making a what?'
'Stealing it.'
I drew myself up to my full height, and I shouldn't be surprised if my eyes didn't flash. I have been accused of a good many things in my time, notably by my Aunt Agatha, but never of stealing cats, and the charge gave deep offence to the Wooster pride. Heated words were on the tip of my tongue, but I kept the min status quo, as the expression is. After all, the man was my host.
With an effort to soothe, I said:
'You wrong me, Colonel. I wouldn't dream such a thing.'
'Yes you would, yes you would, yes you would. And don't call me Colonel.'
It was hardly an encouraging start, but I tried again.
'Nice day.'
'Damn the day.'
'Crops coming on nicely?'
'Curse the crops.'
'How's my aunt?'
'How the devil should I know how your aunt is?'
I thought this odd. When you've got an aunt staying with you, you ought to be able to supply enquirers with a bulletin, if only a sketchy one, of her state of health. I began to wonder if the little shrimp I was chatting with wasn't a bit fuzzy in the upper storey. Certainly, as far as the conversation had gone at present, he would have aroused the professional interest of any qualified brain specialist.
But I didn't give up. We Woosters don't. I tried another tack altogether.
'It was awfully kind of you to ask me to lunch,' I said.
I don't say he actually frothed at the mouth. There was no question, however, that my words had displeased him:
'Ask you to lunch? Ask you to lunch? I wouldn't ask you to lunch –'
I think he was about to add 'with a ten-foot pole', but at this moment from off-stage there came the sound of a robust tenor voice singing what sounded like the song hit from some equatorial African musical comedy, and the next moment Major Plank appeared, and the scales fell from my eyes. Plank being on the premises meant that this wasn't the Briscoe residence by a damn sight. By losing faith in Jeeves and turning to the right on reaching the high road, instead of to the left as he had told me to, I had come to the wrong house. For an instant I felt like blaming the centenarian, but we Woosters are fair minded and I remembered that I had asked him the way to Eggesford Court, which this joint presumably was, and if you say Court when you mean Hall, there's bound to be confusion.
'Good Lord,' I said, suffused with embarrassment, 'aren't you Colonel Briscoe?'
He didn't deign to answer that one, and Plank started talking.
'Why, hullo, Wooster,' he said. 'Who would ever have thought of seeing you here? I didn't know you knew Cook.'
'Do you know him?' said the purple chap, evidently stunned by the idea that I could have a respectable acquaintance.
'Of course I know him. Met him at my place in Gloucestershire, though under what circumstances I've forgotten. It'll come back, but at the moment all I know is that he has changed his name. It used to be something beginning with Al, and now it's Wooster. I suppose the original name was something ghastly which he couldn't stand any longer. I knew a man at the United Explorers who changed his name from Buggins to Westmacote-Trevelyan. I thought it very sensible of him, but it didn't do him much good, poor chap, because he had scarcely got used to signing his IOUs Gilbert Westmacote-Trevelyan when he was torn asunder by a lion. Still, that's the way it goes. How did you come out with the doctor, Wooster? Was it bubonic plague?'
I said No, not bubonic plague, and he said he was glad to hear it, because bubonic plague was no joke, ask anyone.
'You staying in these parts?'
'No, I have a cottage in the village.'
'Pity. You could have come here. Been company for Vanessa. But you'll join us at lunch?' said Plank, who seemed to think that a guest is entitled to issue invitations to his host's house, which any good etiquette book would have told him is not the case.
'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm lunching at Eggesford Hall with the Briscoes.'
This caused Cook, who had been silent for some time, probably having trouble with his vocal cords, to snort visibly.
'I knew it! I was right! I knew you were Briscoe's hireling!'
'What are you talking about, Cook?' asked Plank, not abreast.
'Never mind what I'm talking about. I know what I'm talking about. This man is in the pay of Briscoe, and he came here to steal my cat.'
'Why would he steal your cat?'
'You know why he would steal my cat. You know as well as I do that Briscoe stops at nothing. Look at this man. Look at his face. Guilt written all over it. I caught him with the cat in his arms. Hold him there, Plank, while I go and telephone the police.'
And so saying he legged it.
I confess to being a little uneasy when I heard him tell Plank to hold me, because I had had experience of Plank's methods of holding people. I believe I mentioned earlier that at our previous meeting he had proposed to detain me with the assistance of his Zulu knob-kerrie, and he had in his grasp now a stout stick, which, if it wasn't a Zulu knob-kerrie, was unquestionably the next best thing.
Fortunately he was in a friendly mood.
'You mustn't mind Cook, Wooster. He's upset. He's been having a spot of domestic trouble. That's why he asked me to come and stay. He thought I might have advice to offer. He allowed his daughter Vanessa to go to London to study Art at the Slade, if that's the name of the place, and she got in with the wrong crowd, got pinched by the police and so on and so forth, upon which Cook did the heavy father and jerked her home and told her she had got to stay there till she learned a bit of sense. She doesn't like it, poor girl, but I tell her she's lucky not to be in equatorial Africa, because there if a daughter blots her copybook, her father chops her head off and buries her in the back garden. Well, I hate to see you go, Wooster, but I think you had better be off. I don't say Cook will be back with a shotgun, but you never know. I'd leave, if I were you.' His advice struck me as good. I took it. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 5 | I headed for the cottage, where I had left the car. By the time I got there I should have done three miles of foot-slogging and I proposed to give the leg muscles a bit of time off, and if E. Jimpson Murgatroyd didn't like it, let him eat cake.
I was particularly anxious to get together with Jeeves and hear what he had to say about the strange experience through which I had just passed, as strange an e. as had come my way in what you might call a month of Sundays.
I could make nothing of the attitude Cook had taken up. Plank's theory that his asperity had been due to the fact that Vanessa had got into the wrong crowd in London seemed to me pure apple sauce. I mean, if your daughter picks her social circle unwisely and starts clobbering the police, you don't necessarily accuse the first person you meet of stealing cats. The two things don't go together.
'Jeeves,' I said, reaching the finish line and sinking into an armchair, 'answer what I am about to ask you frankly. You have known me a good time.'
'Yes, sir.'
'You have had every opportunity of studying my psychology.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, would you say I was a fellow who stole cats?'
'No, sir.'
His ready response pleased me not a little. No hesitation, no humming and hawing, just 'No, sir'.
'Exactly what I expected you to say. Just what anyone at the Drones or elsewhere would say. And yet cat-stealing is what I have been accused of.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'By a scarlet-faced blighter named Cook.'
And forthwith, if that's the expression, I told him about my strange e., passing lightly over my not having trusted his directions on reaching the high road. He listened attentively, and when I had finished came as near to smiling as he ever does. That is to say, a muscle at the corner of his mouth twitched slightly as if some flying object such as a mosquito had settled there momentarily.
'I think I can explain, sir.'
It seemed incredible. I felt like Doctor Watson hearing Sherlock Holmes talking about the one hundred and forty-seven varieties of tobacco ash and the time it takes parsley to settle in the butter dish.
'This is astounding, Jeeves,' I said. 'Professor Moriarty wouldn't have lasted a minute with you. You really mean the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle have come together and fallen into their place?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You know all?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Amazing!'
'Elementary, sir. I found the habitues of the Goose and Grasshopper a ready source of information.'
'Oh, you asked the boys in the back room?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And what did they tell you?'
'It appears that bad blood exists between Mr Cook and Colonel Briscoe.'
'They don't like each other, you mean?'
'Precisely, sir.'
'I suppose it's often that way in the country. Not much to do except think what a tick your neighbour is.'
'It may be as you say, sir, but in the present case there is more solid ground for hostility, at least on Mr Cook's part. Colonel Briscoe is chairman of the board of magistrates and in that capacity recently imposed a substantial fine on Mr Cook for moving pigs without a permit.'
I nodded intelligently. I could see how this must have rankled. I do not keep pigs myself, but if I did I should strongly resent not being allowed to give them a change of air and scenery without getting permission from a board of magistrates. Are we in Russia?
'Furthermore –'
'Oh, that wasn't all?'
'No, sir. Furthermore, they are rival owners of racehorses, and that provides another source of friction.'
'Why?'
'Sir?'
'I don't see why. Most of the big owners are very chummy. They love one another like brothers.'
'The big owners, yes, sir. It is different with those whose activities are confined to small local meetings. There the rivalry is more personal and acute. In the forthcoming contest at Bridmouth-on-Sea the race, in the opinion of my informants at the Goose and Grasshopper, will be a duel between Colonel Briscoe's Simla and Mr Cook's Potato Chip. All the other entries are negligible. There is consequently no little friction between the two gentlemen as the date of the contest approaches, and it is of vital importance to both of them that nothing shall go wrong with the training of their respective horses. Rigid attention to training is essential.'
Well, he didn't need to tell me that. An old hand like myself knows how vital rigid training is for success on the turf. I have not forgotten the time at Aunt Dahlia's place in Worcestershire when I had a heavy bet on Marlene Cooper, the gardener's niece, in the Girls' Under Fifteen Egg and Spoon race on Village Sports Day, and on the eve of the meeting she broke training, ate pounds of unripe gooseberries, and got abdominal pains which prevented her showing up at the starting post.
'But, Jeeves,' I said, 'while all this is of absorbing interest, what I want to know is why Cook got into such a frenzy about this cat. You ought to have seen his blood pressure. It shot up like a rocket. He couldn't have been more emotional if he had been a big shot in the Foreign Office and I a heavily veiled woman diffusing a strange exotic scent whom he had caught getting away with the Naval Treaty.'
'Fortunately I am in a position to elucidate the mystery, sir. One of the habitués with whom I fraternized at the Goose and Grasshopper chances to be an employee of Mr Cook, and he furnished me with the facts in the case. The cat was a stray which appeared one morning in the stable yard, and Potato Chip took an instant fancy to it. This, I understand, is not unusual with highly bred horses, though more often it is a goat or a sheep which engages their affection.'
This was quite new stuff to me. First I'd ever heard of it.
'Goat?' I said.
'Yes, sir.'
'Or a sheep?'
'Yes, sir.'
'You mean love at first sight?'
'One might so describe it, sir.'
'What asses horses are, Jeeves.'
'Certainly their mentality is open to criticism, sir.'
'Though I suppose if for weeks you've seen nothing but Cook and stable boys, a cat comes as a nice change. I take it that the friendship ripened?'
'Yes, sir. The cat now sleeps nightly in the horse's stall and is there to meet him when he returns from his daily exercise.'
'The welcome guest?'
'Extremely welcome, sir.'
'They've put down the red carpet for it, you might say. Strange. I'd have thought a human vampire bat like Cook would have had a stray cat off the premises with a single kick.'
'Something of that nature did occur, my informant tells me, and the result was disastrous. Potato Chip became listless and refused his food. Then one day the cat returned, and the horse immediately recovered both vivacity and appetite.'
'Golly!'
'Yes, sir, the story surprised me when I heard it.'
I rose. Time was getting on, and I had a vision of the Briscoes with their noses pressed to the drawing-room window, looking out and telling each other that surely their Wooster ought to have shown up by now.
'Well, many thanks, Jeeves,' I said. 'With your customary what-d'you-call-it you have cast light on what might have remained a permanent brain-teaser. But for you I should have passed sleepless nights wondering what on earth Cook thought he was playing at. I now feel kindlier towards him. I still wouldn't care to have to go on a long walking tour with the son of a what-not, and if he ever gets himself put up for the Drones, I shall certainly blackball him, but I can see his point of view. He finds me clutching his cat, learns that I am on pally terms with his deadly rival the Colonel, and naturally assumes that there is dirty work afoot. No wonder he yelled like a soul in torment and brandished his hunting crop. He deserves considerable credit for not having given me six of the best with it.'
'Your broadminded view is to be applauded, sir.'
'One must always strive to put oneself in the other fellow's place and remember... remember what?'
'Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.'
'Thank you, Jeeves.'
'Not at all, sir.'
'And now Ho for Eggesford Hall.'
If you ask about me in circles which I frequent, you will be told that I am a good mixer who is always glad to shake hands with new faces, and it ought to have been in merry mood that I braked the car at the front door of Eggesford Hall. But it wasn't. Not that there was anything about the new faces on the other side to give me the pip. Colonel Briscoe proved to be a genial host, Mrs B. a genial hostess. There were also present, besides Aunt Dahlia, the Rev. Ambrose Briscoe, the Colonel's brother, and the latter's daughter Angelica, a very personable wench with whom, had I not been so preoccupied, I should probably have fallen in love. In short, as pleasant a bunch as you could wish to meet.
But that was the trouble. I was preoccupied. It wasn't so much finding myself practically next door to Vanessa Cook that worried me. It would be pretty difficult for me to go anywhere in England where there wasn't somebody who had turned me down at one time or another. I have run across them in spots as widely separated as Bude, Cornwall, and Sedbergh, Yorks. No, what was occupying the Wooster mind was the thought of Pop Cook and his hunting crop. It was not agreeable to feel that one was on bad terms with a man who might run amok at any moment and who, if he did, would probably make a beeline for Bertram.
The result was that I did not shine at the festive b. The lunch was excellent and the port with which it concluded definitely super, and I tucked in with a zest which would have made E. Jimpson Murgatroyd draw in a sharp breath, but as far as sprightly conversation went I was a total loss, and the suspicion must have crossed the minds of my host and hostess fairly soon in the proceedings that they were entertaining a Trappist monk with a good appetite.
That this had not failed to cross the mind of Aunt Dahlia was made abundantly clear to me when the meal was over and she took me for a tour of what Jeeves had called the extensive grounds. She ticked me off with her habitual non-mincing of words. All through my life she has been my best friend and severest critic, and when she rebukes a nephew she rebukes him good.
She spoke as follows, her manner and diction similar to those of a sergeant-major addressing recruits.
'What's the matter with you, you poor reptile? I told Jimmy and Elsa that my nephew might look like a half-witted halibut, but wait till he starts talking, I said, he'll have you in stitches. And what occurs? Quips? Sallies? Diverting anecdotes? No, sir. You sit there stupefying yourself with food, and scarcely a sound out of you except the steady champing of your jaws. I felt like an impresario of performing fleas who has given his star artist a big build-up, only to have him forget his lines on the opening night.'
I bowed my head in shame, knowing how justified was the rebuke. My contribution to what I have heard called the feast of reason and flow of soul had been, as I have indicated, about what you might have expected from a strong silent Englishman with tonsillitis.
'And the way you waded into that port. Like a camel arriving at an oasis after a long journey through desert sands. It was as if you had received private word from Jimmy that he wanted his cellar emptied quick so that he could turn it into a games room. If that's the way you carry on in London, no wonder you come out all over in spots. I'm surprised you can walk.'
She was right. I had to admit it.
'Did you ever see a play called Ten Nights in a Bar Room?'
I could bear no more. Weakly I tried to plead my case.
'I am sorry, aged relative. What you say is true. But I am not myself today.'
'Well, that's a bit of luck for everybody.'
'I'm what you could call distraught.'
'You're what I could call a mess.'
'I passed through a strange experience this morning.'
And with no further ado – or is it to-do? I never can remember – I told her my cat-Cook story.
I told it well, and there was no mistaking her interest when I came to the part where Jeeves elucidated the mystery of the cat's importance in the scheme of things.
'Do you mean to say,' she yipped, 'that if you had got away with that cat –'
I had to pull her up here with a touch of austerity. In spite of the clearness with which I had been at pains to tell the story just right she seemed to have got the wrong angle on the thing.
'There was no question, old ancestor, of my getting away with the cat. I was merely doing the civil thing by tickling its stomach.'
'But do you really mean that if someone were to get away with it, it would be all up with Potato Chip's training?'
'So Jeeves informs me, and he had it from a reliable source at the Goose and Grasshopper.'
'H'm.'
'Why do you say H'm?'
'Ha.'
'Why do you say Ha?'
'Never mind.'
But I did mind. When an aunt says 'H'm' and 'Ha', it means something, and I was filled with a nameless fear.
However, I had no time to go into it, for at this moment we were joined by the Rev. Briscoe and his daughter. And shortly afterwards I left. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 6 | The afternoon had now hotted up to quite a marked extent, and what with a substantial lunch and several beakers of port I was more or less in the condition a python gets into after its mid-day meal. A certain drowsiness had stolen over me, so much so that twice in the course of my narrative the aged r. had felt compelled to notify me that if I didn't stop yawning in her face, she would let me have one on the side of my fat head with the parasol with which she was shielding herself from the rays of the sun.
There had been no diminution of this drowsiness since last heard of, and as I bowled along the high road I was practically in dreamland, and it occurred to me that if I didn't pause somewhere and sleep it off, I should shortly become a menace to pedestrians and traffic. The last thing I wanted was to come before my late host in his magisterial capacity, charged with having struck some citizen amidships while under the influence of his port. Colonel Briscoe's port, I mean, not the citizen's. Embarrassing for both of us, though in a way a compliment to the excellence of his cellar.
The high road, like most high roads, was flanked on either side by fields, some with cows, some without, so, the day being as warm as it was, just dropping anchor over here or over there meant getting as cooked to a crisp as Major Plank would have been, had the widows and surviving relatives of the late chief of the 'Mgombis established connection with him. What I wanted was shade, and by great good fortune I came on a little turning leading to wooded country, just what I needed. I drove into this wooded country, stopped the machinery, and it wasn't long before sleep poured over me in a healing wave, as the expression is.
It started off by being one of those dreamless sleeps, but after a while a nightmare took over. It seemed to me that I was out fishing with E. Jimpson Murgatroyd in what appeared to be tropical waters, and he caught a shark and I was having a look at it, when it suddenly got hold of my arm. This of course gave me a start, and I woke. And as I opened my eyes I saw that there was something attached to my port-side biceps, but it wasn't a shark, it was Orlo Porter.
'I beg your pardon, sir,' he was saying, 'for interrupting your doze, but I am a bird-watcher. I was watching a Clarkson's warbler in that thicket over there, and I was afraid your snoring might frighten it away, so might I beg you to go easy on the sound effects. Clarkson's warblers are very sensitive to loud noises, and you were making yourself audible a mile off.'
Or words to that general import.
I would have replied 'Oh, hullo', or something like that, but I was too astonished to speak, partly because I had never suspected that Orlo Porter could be so polite, but principally because he was there at all. I had looked on Maiden Eggesford as somewhere where I would be free from all human society, a haven where I would have peace perfect peace with loved ones far away, as the hymnbook says, and it was turning out to be a sort of meeting place of the nations. First Plank, then Vanessa Cook, and now Orlo Porter. If this sort of thing was going to go on, I told myself, I wouldn't be surprised to see my Aunt Agatha come round the corner arm in arm with E. J. Murgatroyd.
Orlo Porter seemed now to recognize me, for he started like a native of India who sees a scorpion in his path, and went on to say:
'Wooster, you blasted slimy creeping crawling serpent, I might have expected this!'
It was plain that he was not glad to see me, for there was nothing affectionate in what he said or the way he said it, but apart from that I was unable to follow him. He had me at a loss.
'Expected what?' I asked, hoping for footnotes.
'That you would have followed Vanessa here, your object to steal her from me.'
This struck me as so absurd that I laughed a light laugh, and he asked me to stop cackling like a hen whose union had been blest – or laying a blasted egg, as he preferred to put it.
'I haven't followed anyone anywhere,' I said, trying to pour oil on the troubled w.'s. I debated with myself whether to add 'old man', and decided not. I doubt if it would have had much effect, anyway.
'Then why are you here?' he demanded in a voice so fortissimo that it was obvious that he didn't give a damn if Clarkson's warbler heard him and legged it in a panic.
I continued suave.
'The matter is susceptible of a ready explanation,' I said. 'You remember those spots of mine.'
'Don't change the subject.'
'I wasn't. Having inspected the spots, the doc advised me to retire to the country.'
'There are plenty of other places in the country to retire to.'
'Ah,' I said, 'but my Aunt Dahlia is staying with some people here, and I knew it would make all the difference if I had her to exchange ideas with. Very entertaining woman, my Aunt Dahlia. Never a dull moment when she's around.'
This, as I had foreseen, had him stymied. Something of his belligerence left him, and I could see that he was saying to himself, 'Can it be that I have wronged Bertram?' Then he clouded over again.
'All this is very plausible,' he said, 'but it does not explain why you were slinking round Eggesford Court this morning.'
I was amazed. When I was a child, my nurse told me that there was One who was always beside me, spying out all my ways, and that if I refused to eat my spinach I would hear about it on Judgment Day, but it never occurred to me that she was referring to Orlo Porter.
'How on earth do you know that?' I said – or perhaps 'gasped' would be a better word, or even 'gurgled'.
'I was watching the place through my bird-watching binoculars, hoping to get a glimpse of the woman I love.'
This gave me the opportunity to steer the conversation into less controversial topics.
'I had forgotten you were a bird-watcher till you reminded me just now. You went in for it at Oxford, I remember. It isn't a thing I would care to do myself. Not,' I hastened to add, 'that I've anything against bird-watching. Must be most interesting, besides keeping you' – I was about to say 'out of the public houses' but thought it better to change it to 'out in the open air'. 'What's the procedure?' I said. 'I suppose you lurk in a bush till a bird comes along, and then you out with the glasses and watch it.'
I had more to say, notably a question as to who Clarkson was and how he came to have a warbler, but he interrupted me.
'I will tell you why you were sneaking round Eggesford Court this morning. It was in the hope of seeing Vanessa.'
I no-noed, but he paid no attention.
'And I would like to say for your guidance, Wooster, that if I catch you trying to inflict your beastly society on her again, I shall have no hesitation in tearing your insides out.'
He started to walk away, paused, added over his shoulder the words 'With my bare hands' and was gone, whether or not to resume watching Clarkson's warbler, I had no means of knowing. My own feeling was that any level-headed bird with sensitive ears would have removed itself almost immediately after he had begun to speak. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 7 | These parting remarks of O. Porter gave me, as may readily be imagined, considerable food for thought. There happened at the moment to be no passers-by, but if any passers had been by, they would have noticed that my brow was knitted and the eyes a bit glazed. This always happens when you are turning things over in your mind and not liking the look of them. You see the same thing in Cabinet ministers when they are asked awkward questions in Parliament.
It was not, of course, the first time an acquaintance had expressed a desire to delve into my interior and remove its contents. Roderick Spode, now going about under the alias of Lord Sidcup, had done so frequently when in the grip of the illusion that I was trying to steal Madeline Bassett from him, little knowing that she gave me a pain in the gizzard and that I would willingly have run a mile in tight shoes to avoid her.
But I had never before had such a sense of imminent peril as now. Spode might talk airily – or is it glibly? – of buttering me over the lawn and jumping on the remains with hobnailed boots, but it was always possible to buoy oneself up with the thought that his bark was worse than his b. I mean to say, a fellow like Spode has a position to keep up. He can't afford to indulge every passing whim. If he goes buttering people over lawns, he's in for trouble. Debrett's Peerage tut-tuts, Burke's Landed Gentry raises its eyebrows, and as likely as not he gets cut by the County and has to emigrate.
But Orlo Porter was under no such restraint. Being a Communist, he was probably on palsy-walsy terms with half the big shots at the Kremlin, and the more of the bourgeoisie he disembowelled, the better they would be pleased. 'A young man with the right stuff in him, this Comrade Porter. Got nice ideas,' they would say when reading about the late Wooster. 'We must keep an eye on him with a view to further advancement.'
Obviously, then, the above Porter having expressed himself as he had done about Vanessa Cook, the shrewd thing for me to do was to keep away from her. I put this up to Jeeves when I returned, and he saw eye to eye with me.
'What are those things circumstances have, Jeeves?' I said.
'Sir?'
'You know what I mean. You talk of a something of circumstances which leads to something. Cats enter into it, if I'm not wrong.'
'Would concatenation be the word you are seeking?'
'That's right. It was on the tip of my tongue. Do concatenations of circumstances arise?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, one has arisen now. The facts are these. When we were in London, I formed a slight acquaintance with a Miss Cook who turns out to be the daughter of the chap who owns the horse which thinks so highly of that cat. She had a spot of trouble with the police, and her father summoned her home to see that she didn't get into more. So she is now at Eggesford Court. Got the scenario so far?'
'Yes, sir.'
'This caused her betrothed, a man named Porter, to follow her here in order to give her aid and comfort. Got that?'
'Yes, sir. This frequently happens when two young hearts are sundered.'
'Well, I met him this today, and my presence in Maiden Eggesford came as a surprise to him.'
'One can readily imagine it, sir.'
'He took it for granted that I had come in pursuit of Miss Cook.'
'Like young Lochinvar, when he came out of the West.'
The name was new to me, but I didn't ask for further details. I saw that he was following the plot, and it never does, when you're telling a story, to wander off into side issues.
'And he said if I didn't desist, he would tear my insides out with his bare hands.'
'Indeed, sir?'
'You don't know Porter, do you?'
'No, sir.'
'Well, you know Spode. Porter is Spode plus. Hasty temper. Quick to take offence. And the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands, as the fellow said. The last chap you'd want to annoy. So what do you suggest?'
'I think it would be advisable to avoid the society of Miss Cook.'
'Exactly the idea which occurred to me. And it ought not to be difficult. The chances of Pop Cook asking me to drop in are very slim. So if I take the high road and she takes the low road... Answer that, will you, Jeeves,' I said as the telephone rang in the hall. 'It's probably Aunt Dahlia, but it may be Porter, and I do not wish to have speech with him.'
He went out, to return a few moments later.
'It was Miss Cook, sir, speaking from the post office. She desired me to inform you that she would be calling on you immediately.'
A sharp 'Lord-love-a-duck' escaped me, and I eyed him with reproach.
'You didn't think to say I was out?'
'The lady gave me no opportunity of doing so, sir. She delivered her message and rang off without waiting for me to speak.'
My brow got all knitted again.
'This isn't too good, Jeeves.'
'No, sir.'
'Calling at my home address like this.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Who's to say that Orlo Porter is not lurking outside with his bird-watching binoculars?' I said.
But before I could go into the matter in depth, the door bell had rung, and Vanessa Cook was in my midst. Jeeves, I need scarcely say, had vanished like a family spectre at the crack of dawn. He always does when company arrives. I hadn't seen him go, and I doubted if Vanessa had, but he had gone.
As I stood gazing at Vanessa, I was conscious of the uneasiness you feel when you run up against something particularly hot and are wondering when it is going to explode. It was more than a year since I had seen her, except in the distance when about to be scooped in by the police, and the change in her appearance was calculated to curdle the blood a bit. Her outer aspect was still that of a girl who would have drawn whistles from susceptible members of America's armed forces, but there was something sort of formidable about her which had not been there before, something kind of imperious and defiant, if you know what I mean. Due no doubt to the life she had been leading. You can't go heading protest marches and socking the constabulary without it showing.
Hard, that's the word I was trying for. She had always been what they call a proud beauty, but now she was a hard one. Her lips were tightly glued together, her chin protruding, her whole lay-out that of a girl who intended to stand no rannygazoo. Except that the latter was way down in Class D as a looker, while she, as I have indicated, was the pin-up girl to end all pin-up girls, she reminded me of my childhood dancing mistress. The thought occurred to me that in another thirty years or so she would look just like my Aunt Agatha, before whose glare, as is well known, strong men curl up like rabbits.
Nor was there anything in her greeting to put me at my ease. Having given me a nasty look as if I ranked in her esteem in one of the lowest brackets, she said:
'I am very angry with you, Bertie.'
I didn't like the sound of this at all. It is never agreeable to incur the displeasure of a girl with a punch like hers. I said I was sorry to hear that, and asked what seemed to be the trouble.
'Following me here!'
There is nothing that braces one up like being accused of something to which you can find a ready answer. I laughed merrily, and her reaction to my mirth was much the same as Orlo Porter's had been, though where he had spoken of hens laying eggs she preferred the simile of a hyena with a bone stuck in its throat. I said I hadn't had a notion that she was in these parts, and this time she laughed, one of those metallic ones that are no good to man or beast.
'Oh, come!' she said. 'Oddly enough,' she added, 'although I am furious, I can't help admiring you in a way. I am surprised to find that you have so much initiative. It is abominable, but it does show spirit. It makes me feel that if I had married you, I could have made something of you.'
I shuddered from hair-do to shoe-sole. I was even more thankful than before that she had given me the bum's rush. I know what making something of me meant. Ten minutes after the bishop and colleague had done their stuff she would have been starting to mould me and jack up my soul, and I like my soul the way it is. It may not be the sort of soul that gets crowds cheering in the streets, but it suits me and I don't want people fooling about with it.
'But it is quite impossible, Bertie. I love Orlo and can love no one else.'
'That's all right. Entirely up to you. I must put you straight on one thing, though. I really didn't know you were here.'
'Are you trying to make me believe that it was a pure coincidence –'
'No, not that. More what I would call a concatenation of circumstances. My doctor ordered me a quiet life in the country, and I chose Maiden Eggesford because my aunt is staying with some people here and I thought it would be nice being near her. A quiet life in the country can be a bit too quiet if you don't know anybody. She got me this cottage.'
You might have thought that that would have cleaned everything up and made life one grand sweet song, as the fellow said, but no, she went on looking puff-faced. No pleasing some girls.
'So I was wrong in thinking that you had initiative,' she said, and if her lip didn't curl scornfully, I don't know a scornfully curling lip when I see one. 'You are just an ordinary footling member of the bourgeoisie that Orlo dislikes so much.'
'A typical young man about town, some authorities say.'
'I don't suppose you have ever done anything worthwhile in your life.'
I could have made her look pretty silly at this juncture by revealing that I had won a Scripture Knowledge prize at my private school, a handsomely bound copy of a devotional work whose name has escaped me, and that when Aunt Dahlia was running that Milady's Boudoir paper of hers I contributed to it an article, or piece as we writers call it, on What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing, but I let it go, principally because she had gone on speaking and it is practically impossible to cut in on a woman who has gone on speaking. They get the stuff out so damn quick that the slower male hasn't a hope.
'But the matter of your wasted life is beside the point. God made you, and presumably he knew what he was doing, so we need not go into that. What you will want to hear is my reason for coming to see you.'
'Any time you're passing,' I said in my polished way, but she took no notice and continued.
'Father's friend, Major Plank, who is staying with us, was talking at lunch about someone named Wooster who had called this morning, and when Father turned purple and choked on his lamb cutlet I knew it must be you. You are the sort of young man he dislikes most.'
'Do young men dislike him?'
'Invariably. Father is and always has been a cross between Attila the Hun and a snapping-turtle. Well, having found that you were in Maiden Eggesford I came to ask you to do something for me.'
'Anything I can.'
'It's quite simple. I shall of course be writing to Orlo, but I don't want him to send his letters to the Court because Father, in addition to resembling a snapping-turtle, is a man of low cunning who wouldn't hesitate to intercept and destroy them, and he always gets down to breakfast before I do, which gives him a strategical advantage. By the time I got to the table the cream of my correspondence would be in his trouser pocket. So I am going to tell Orlo to address his letters care of you, and I will call for them every afternoon.'
I never heard a proposition I liked the sound of less. The idea of her calling at the cottage daily, with Orlo Porter, already heated to boiling point, watching its every move, froze my young blood and made my two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, as I have heard Jeeves put it. It was with infinite relief that I realized a moment later that my fears were groundless, there being no need for correspondence between the parties of the first and second part.
'But he's here,' I said.
'Here? In Maiden Eggesford?'
'Right plump spang in Maiden Eggesford.'
'Are you being funny, Bertie?'
'Of course I'm not being funny. If I were being funny, I'd have had you in convulsions from the outset. I tell you he's here. I met him this afternoon. He was watching a Clarkson's warbler. Arising from which, you don't happen to have any data relating to Clarkson, do you? I've been wondering who he was and how he got a warbler.'
She ignored my observation. This generally happens with me. Show me a woman, I sometimes say, and I will show you someone who is going to ignore my observations.
Looking at her closely, I noted a change in her aspect. I have said that her face had hardened as the result of going about the place socking policemen, but now it had got all soft. And while her two eyes didn't actually start from their spheres, they widened to about the size of regulation golf balls, and a tender smile lit up her map. She said, 'Well, strike me pink!' or words to that effect.
'So he has come! He has followed me!' She spoke as if it had given her no end of a kick that he had done this. Apparently it wasn't being followed that she objected to; it just had to be the right chap. 'Like some knight in shining armour riding up on his white horse.'
Here would have been a chance to give Jeeves's friend who came out of the West a plug by saying that Orlo reminded me of him, but I had to give it a miss because I couldn't remember the fellow's name.
'I wonder how he managed to get away from his job,' I said.
'He was on his annual two weeks' holiday. That is how he came to be at that protest march. He and I were heading the procession.'
'I know. I was watching from afar.'
'I have not found out yet what happened to him that day. After he knocked the policeman down he suddenly disappeared.'
'Always the best thing to do if you knock a policeman down. He jumped into my car and I drove him to safety.'
'Oh, I see.'
I must say I thought she might have put it a bit stronger. One does not desire thanks for these little kindnesses one does here and there, but considering that on his behalf I had interfered with the police in the execution of their duty, if that's how the script reads, thereby rendering myself liable to a sizeable sojourn in chokey, a little enthusiasm would not have been amiss. Nothing to be done about it except give her a reproachful look. I did this. It made no impression whatever, and she proceeded.
'Is he staying at the Goose and Grasshopper?'
'I couldn't say,' I said, and if I spoke with a touch of what-d'you-call-it in my voice, who can blame me? 'When I met him, we talked mostly about my interior organs.'
'What's wrong with your interior organs?'
'Nothing so far, but he thought there might be something later on.'
'He has a wonderfully sympathetic nature.'
'Yes, hasn't he.'
'Did he recommend anything that would be good for you?'
'As a matter of fact he did.'
'How like him!' She was silent for a while, no doubt pondering on all Orlo's lovable qualities, many of which I had missed. At length she spoke.
'He must be at the Goose and Grasshopper. It's the only decent inn in the place. Go there and tell him to meet me here at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.'
'Here?'
'Yes.'
'You mean at this cottage?'
'Why not?'
'I thought you might want to see him alone.'
'Oh, that's all right. You can go for a walk.'
Once more I sent up a silent vote of thanks to my guardian angel for having fixed it that this proud beauty should not become Mrs Bertram Wooster. Her cool assumption that she had only got to state her wishes and all and sundry would jump to fulfil them gave me the pip. So stung was the Wooster pride by the thought of being slung out at her bidding from my personal cottage that it is not too much to say that my blood boiled, and I would probably have said something biting like 'Oh, yes?', only I felt that a pieux chevalier, which I always aim to be, ought not to crush the gentler sex beneath the iron heel, no matter what the provocation.
So I changed it to 'Right-ho', and went off to the Goose and Grasshopper to give Orlo the low-down. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 8 | I found him in the private bar having a gin and ginger ale. His face, never much to write home about, was rendered even less of a feast for the eye by a dark scowl. His spirits were plainly at their lowest ebb, as so often happens when Sundered Heart A is feeling that the odds against his clicking with Sundered Heart B cannot be quoted at better than a hundred to eight.
Of course he may have been brooding because he had just heard that a pal of his in Moscow had been liquidated that morning, or he had murdered a capitalist and couldn't think of a way of getting rid of the body, but I preferred to attribute his malaise to frustrated love, and I couldn't help feeling a pang of pity for him.
He looked at me as I entered in a manner which made me realize how little chance there was of our exchanging presents at Christmas, and I remember thinking what a lot of him there was and all of it anti-Wooster. I had often felt the same about Spode. It seemed that there was something about me that aroused the baser passions in men who were eight feet tall and six across. I took this up with Jeeves once, and he agreed that it was singular.
His eye as I approached was what I have heard described as lacklustre. Whatever it was that was causing this V-shaped depression, seeing me had not brought the sunshine into his life. His demeanour was that of any member of a Wednesday matinée audience or, let us say, a dead fish on a fishmonger's slab. Nor did he brighten when I had delivered my message. After I had done so there was a long silence, broken only by the gurgling of ginger ale as it slid down his throat.
Eventually he spoke, his voice rather like that of a living corpse in one of those horror films where the fellow takes the lid off the tomb in the vault beneath the ruined chapel and blowed if the occupant doesn't start a conversation with him.
'I don't understand this.'
'What don't you understand?' I said, adding 'Comrade', for there is never anything lost by being civil. 'Any assistance I can give in the way of solving any little problems you may have will be freely given. I am only here to help.'
The amount of sunny charm I had put into these words ought to have melted the reserve of a brass monkey, but they got absolutely nowhere with him. He continued to eye me in an Aunt Agathaesque manner.
'It seems odd, if as you say you are the merest acquaintance, that she should be paying you clandestine visits at your cottage. Taken in conjunction with your surreptitious appearance at Eggesford Court, it cannot but invite suspicion.'
When someone talks like that, using words like 'clandestine' and 'surreptitious' and saying that something cannot but invite suspicion, the prudent man watches his step. It was a great relief to me that I had a watertight explanation. I gave it with a winning frankness which I felt could scarcely fail to bring home the bacon.
'My appearance at Eggesford Court wasn't surreptitious. I was there because I had come to the wrong house. And Miss Cook's visit to my cottage had to be clandestine because her father watches her as closely as the paper on the wall. And she visited my cottage because there was no other way of getting in touch with you. She didn't know you were in Maiden Eggesford, and she thought if you wrote her a letter that Pop would intercept it, he being a man who would intercept a daughter's letter at the drop of a hat.'
It sounded absolutely copper-bottomed to me, but he went on giving me the eye.
'All the same,' he said, 'I find it curious that she should have confided in you. It suggests an intimacy.'
'Oh, I wouldn't call it that. Girls I hardly know confide in me. They look upon me as a father figure.'
'Father figure my foot. Any girl who takes you for a father figure ought to have her head examined.'
'Well, let us say a brother figure. They know their secrets are safe with good old Bertie.'
'I'm not so sure you are good old Bertie. More like a snake who goes about the place robbing men of the women they love, if you ask me.'
'Certainly not,' I protested, learning for the first time that this was what snakes did.
'Well, it looks fishy to me,' he said. Then to my relief he changed the subject. 'Do you know a man named Spofforth?'
I said No, I didn't think so.
'P. B. Spofforth. Big fellow with a clipped moustache.'
'No, I've never met him.'
'And you won't for some time. He's in hospital.'
'Too bad. What sent him there?'
'I did. He kissed the woman I love at the annual picnic of the Slade Social and Outing Club. Have you ever kissed the woman I love, Wooster?'
'Good Lord, no.'
'Be careful not to. Did she make a long stay at your cottage?'
'No, very short. In and out like a flash, Just had time to say you were like a knight in shining armour riding up on a white horse and to tell me to tell you to show up at my address tomorrow at three on the dot, and she was off.'
This seemed to soothe him. He went on brooding but now not so much like Jack the Ripper getting up steam for his next murder. He was not, however, quite satisfied.
'I don't call it much of an idea meeting at your cottage,' he said.
'Why not?'
'We shall have you underfoot all the time.'
'Oh, that's all right, Comrade. I shall be going for a walk.'
'Ah,' he said, brightening visibly. 'Going for a walk, eh? Just the thing to do. Capital exercise. Bring the roses to your cheeks. Take your time. Don't hurry back. They tell me there are beauty spots around here well worth seeing.'
And on this cordial note we parted, he to go to the bar for another gin and ginger, I to go back and tell Vanessa that the pourparlers had been completed and that he would be at the starting post at three pip-emma on the morrow.
'How did he look?' she asked, all eagerness.
It was a little difficult to answer this, because he had looked like a small-time gangster with a painful gum-boil, but I threw together a tactful word or two which, as Jeeves would say, gave satisfaction, and she buzzed off.
Jeeves came shimmering in shortly after she had left. He seemed a shade perturbed.
'We were interrupted in our recent conversation, sir.'
'We were, Jeeves, and I am glad to say that I no longer need your advice. During your absence the situation has become clarified. A meeting has been arranged and will shortly take place, in fact here at this cottage at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I, not wishing to intrude, shall be going for a walk.'
'Extremely gratifying, sir,' he said, and I agreed with him that he had tetigisti-ed the rem acu. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 9 | At five minutes to three on the following afternoon I had girded my loins and was preparing to iris out, when Vanessa Cook arrived. The sight of me appeared to displease her. She frowned as if I were something that didn't smell just right, and said:
'Haven't you gone yet?'
I considered this a shade brusque, even for a proud beauty, but, true to my resolve to be preux, I responded suavely:
'Just going.'
'Well, go,' she said, and I went.
The street outside was as usual, offering little entertainment to the sightseer. A few centenarians were dotted about, exchanging reminiscences of the Boer War, and the eye detected a dog which had interested itself in something it had found in the gutter, but otherwise it was empty. I walked down it and had a look at the Jubilee watering-trough and was walking back on the other side, thinking how pleased E. J. Murgatroyd would be if he could see me, when I caught sight of the shop which acted as a post office and remembered that Jeeves had told me that in addition to selling stamps, picture postcards, socks, boots, overalls, pink sweets, yellow sweets, string, cigarettes and stationery it ran a small lending library.
I went in. I had come away rather short of reading matter, and it never does to neglect one's intellectual side.
Like all village lending libraries, this one had not bothered much about keeping itself up to date, and I was hesitating between By Order Of The Czar and The Mystery Of A Hansom Cab, which seemed the best bets, when the door opened to Angelica Briscoe, the personable wench I had met at lunch. The vicar's daughter, if you remember.
Her behaviour on seeing me was peculiar. She suddenly became all conspiratorial, as if she had been a Nihilist in By Order Of The Czar meeting another Nihilist. I had not yet read that opus, but I assumed that it was full of Nihilists who were always meeting other Nihilists and plotting dark plots with them. She clutched my arm and lowering her voice to a sinister whisper said:
'Has he brought it yet?'
I missed her drift by a wide margin. I like to think of myself as a polished man of the world who can kid back and forth with a pretty girl as well as the next chap, but I must confess that my only response to this query was a silent goggle. It struck me as unusual that a vicar's daughter should be a member of a secret society, but I could think of no other explanation for her words. They had sounded like a secret code, the sort of thing you haven't a hope of making sense of if you aren't a unit of The Uncanny Seven in good standing with all your dues paid up.
Eventually I found speech. Not much of it, but some.
'Eh?' I said.
She seemed to feel that her question had been answered. Her manner changed completely. She dropped the By Order Of The Czar stuff and became the nice girl who in all probability played the organ in her father's church.
'I see he hasn't. But of course one has to give him time for a job like that.'
'Like what?'
'I can't explain. Here's Father.'
And the Reverend Briscoe ambled in, his purpose, as it appeared immediately, to purchase half a pound of the pink sweets and half a pound of the yellow as a present for the more deserving of his choir boys. His presence choked the personable wench off from further revelations, and the only conversation that followed had to do with the weather, the condition of the church roof and how-well-your-aunt-is looking-it-was-such-a-pleasure-seeing-her-again. And after a few desultory exchanges I left them and resumed my walk.
It is always difficult to estimate the time two sundered hearts, unexpectedly reunited, will require for picking up the threads. To be on the safe side I gave Orlo and Vanessa about an hour and a half, and when I returned to the cottage I found I had called my shots correctly. Both had legged it.
I was still much perplexed by that utterance of Angelica Briscoe's. The more I brooded on it, the more cryptic, if that's the word, it became. 'Has he brought it yet?', I mean to say. Has who? Brought what? I called Jeeves in, to see what he made of it.
'Tell me, Jeeves,' I said. 'Suppose you were in a shop taking By Order Of The Czar out of the lending library and a clergyman's daughter came in and without so much as a preliminary "Hullo, there", said to you, "Has he brought it yet?", what interpretation would you place on those words?'
He pondered, this way and that dividing the swift mind, as I have heard him put it.
'"Has he brought it yet", sir?'
'Just that.'
'I should reach the conclusion that the lady was expecting a male acquaintance to have arrived or to be arriving shortly bearing some unidentified object.'
'Exactly what I thought. What unidentified object we shall presumably learn in God's good time.'
'No doubt, sir.'
'We must wait patiently till all is revealed.'
'Yes, sir.'
'In the meantime, pigeon-holing that for the moment, did Miss Cook and Mr Porter have their conference all right?'
'Yes, sir, they conversed for some time.'
'In low, throbbing voices?'
'No, sir, the voices of both lady and gentleman became noticeably raised.'
'Odd. I thought lovers generally whispered.'
'Not when an argument is in progress, sir.'
'Good Lord. Did they have an argument?'
'A somewhat acrimonious one, sir, plainly audible in the kitchen, where I was reading the volume of Spinoza which you so kindly gave me for Christmas. The door happened to be ajar.'
'So you were an earwitness?'
'Throughout, sir.'
'Tell me all, Jeeves.'
'Very good, sir. I must begin by explaining that Mr Cook is trustee for a sum of money left to Mr Porter by his late uncle, who appears to have been a partner of Mr Cook in various commercial enterprises.'
'Yes, I know about that. Porter told me.'
'Until Mr Cook releases this money Mr Porter is in no position to marry. I gathered that his present occupation is not generously paid.'
'He's an insurance salesman. Didn't I tell you that I had taken out an accident policy with him?'
'Not that I recall, sir.'
'And a life policy as well, both for sums beyond the dreams of avarice. He talked me into it. But I mustn't interrupt you. Go on telling me all.'
'Very good, sir. Miss Cook was urging Mr Porter to demand an interview with her father.'
'In order to make him cough up?'
'Precisely, sir. "Be firm", I heard her say. "Throw your weight about. Look him in the eye and thump the table."' 'She specified that?'
'Yes, sir.'
'To which he replied?'
'That any time he started thumping tables in the presence of Mr Cook you could certify him as mentally unbalanced and ship him off to the nearest home for the insane – or loony-bin, as he phrased it.'
'Strange.'
'Sir?'
'I wouldn't have thought Porter would have shown such what-is-it.'
'Would pusillanimity be the word for which you are groping, sir?'
'Quite possibly. I know it begins with pu. I said it was strange because I hadn't supposed these knights in shining armour were afraid of anything.'
'Apparently they make an exception in the case of Mr Cook. I gathered from your account of your visit to Eggesford Court that he is a gentleman of somewhat formidable personality.'
'You gathered right. Ever hear of Captain Bligh of the Bounty?'
'Yes, sir. I read the book.'
'I saw the movie. Ever hear of Jack the Ripper?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Put them together and what have you got? Cook. It's that hunting crop of his chiefly. You can face a man with fortitude if he has simply got the disposition of a dyspeptic rattlesnake and confines himself to coarse abuse, but put a hunting crop in his hand and that spells trouble. It was a miracle that I escaped from Eggesford Court with my trouser seat unscathed. But go on, Jeeves. What happened then?'
'May I marshal my thoughts, sir?'
'Certainly. Marshal them all you want.'
'Thank you, sir. One aims at coherence.'
Marshalling his thoughts took between twenty and thirty seconds. At the end of that period he resumed his blow-by- blow report of the dust-up between Vanessa Cook and O. J. Porter, which was beginning to look like the biggest thing that had happened since Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey had their dispute at Chicago.
'It was almost immediately after Mr Porter's refusal to go to Mr Cook and thump tables that Miss Cook introduced the cat into the conversation.'
'Cat? What cat?'
'The one you met at Eggesford Court, with which the horse Potato Chip formed such a durable friendship. Miss Cook was urging Mr Porter to purloin it.'
'Golly!'
'Yes, sir. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.'
Neatly put, I thought.
'Your own?' I said.
'No, sir. A quotation.'
'Well, carry on,' I said, thinking what a lot of good things Shakespeare had said in his time. Female of species deadlier than male. You had only to think of my Aunt Agatha and spouse to realize the truth of this. 'I get the idea, Jeeves. Porter, in possession of the cat, would have a bargaining point with Cook when it came to discussing trust funds.'
'Precisely, sir. Rem acu tetigisti.'
'So I take it that he is now at Eggesford Court putting the bite on old Captain Bligh.'
'No, sir. His refusal to do as Miss Cook asked was unequivocal. "Not in a million years" was the expression he used.'
'Not a very co-operative bloke, this O. J. Porter.'
'No, sir.'
'A bit like Balaam's ass,' I said, referring to one of the dramatis personae who had figured in the examination paper the time I won the Scripture Knowledge prize at my private school. 'If you recall, it too dug in its feet and refused to play ball.'
'Yes, sir.'
'That must have made Miss Cook as sore as a sunburned neck.'
'I did gather from her remarks that she was displeased. She accused Mr Porter of being a lily-livered poltroon, and said that she never wished to speak to him again or hear from him by letter, telegram or carrier pigeon.'
'Pretty final.'
'Yes, sir.'
I didn't actually heave a sigh, but I sort of half-heaved one.
To a man of sensibility there is always something sort of sad about young love coming a stinker on the rocks. Myself, I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to marry Orlo Porter and it would have jarred me to the soles of my socks if I had had to marry Vanessa Cook, but they had unquestionably been all for teaming up, and it seemed a shame that harsh words had come between them and the altar rails.
However, there was this to be said in favour of the rift, that it would do Vanessa all the good in the world to find that she had come up against someone she couldn't say 'Go' to and he goeth, as the fellow said. I mentioned this to Jeeves, and he agreed that there was that aspect to the matter.
'Show her that she isn't Cleopatra or somebody.'
'Very true, sir.'
I would gladly have continued our conversation, but I knew he must be wanting to get back to his Spinoza. No doubt I had interrupted him just as Spinoza was on the point of solving the mystery of the headless body on the library floor.
'Right-ho, Jeeves,' I said. 'That'll be all for the moment.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'If any solution of that "Has he brought it yet?" thing occurs to you, send me an inter-office memo.'
I spoke lightly, but I wasn't feeling so dashed light. Those cryptic words of Angelica Briscoe had shaken me. They seemed to suggest that things were going on behind my back which weren't likely to dome any good. I had suffered so much in the past from girls of Angelica's age starting something – Stiffy Byng is a name that springs to the mind – that I have become wary and suspicious, like a fox that had had the Pytchley after it for years.
By speaking in riddles, as the expression is, A. Briscoe had given me a mystery to chew on; and while mysteries are fine in books – I am never happier than when curled up with the latest Agatha Christie – you don't want them in your private life, for that's how you get headaches.
I was beginning to get one now, when my mind was taken off the throbbing which had started. The front door was open, and through it came Vanessa Cook.
She bore traces of the recent set-to. The cheeks were flushed, the eyes glittering, and looking at the teeth one was left in no doubt that they had been well gnashed in the not too distant past. Her whole demeanour was that of a girl whose emotional nature had been stirred up as if a cyclone had hit it.
'Bertie,' she said.
'Hullo?' I said.
'Bertie,' she said, 'I will be your wife.' |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 10 | You would have expected this to have drawn some comment from me such as 'Oh, my God!' or 'You'll be my What?', but I remained sotto voce and the silent tomb, my eyes bulging like those of the fellows I've heard Jeeves mention, who looked at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien.
The thing had come on me as such a complete surprise. Her rejection of my addresses at the time when I proposed to her had been so definite that it had seemed to me that all danger from that quarter had passed and that from now on we wouldn't even be just good friends. Certainly she had given no indication that she would not prefer to be dead in a ditch rather than married to me. And now this. Is any man safe, one asked oneself. No wonder words failed me, as the expression is.
She, on the other hand, became chatty. Getting the thing off her chest seemed to have done her good. The glitter of her eyes was practically switched off, and she was not clenching her teeth any more. I don't say that even now I would have cared to meet her down a dark alley, but there was a distinct general improvement.
'We shall have quite a quiet wedding,' she said. 'Just a few people I know in London. And it may have to be even quieter than that. It all depends on Father. Your standing with him is roughly what that of a Public Enemy Number One would be at the annual Policeman's Ball. What you did to him I don't know, but I have never seen him a brighter mauve than when your name came up at the luncheon table. If he persists in this attitude, we shall have to elope. That will be perfectly all right with me. I suppose many people would say I was being rash, but I am prepared to take the chance. I know very little of you, true, but anyone the mention of whose name can make Father swallow his lunch the wrong way cannot be wholly bad.'
At last managing to free my tongue from the uvula with which it had become entangled, I found speech, as I dare say those Darien fellows did eventually.
'But I don't understand!'
'What don't you understand?'
'I thought you were going to marry Orlo Porter.'
She uttered a sound rather like an elephant taking its foot out of a mud hole in a Burmese teak forest. The name appeared to have touched an exposed nerve.
'You did, did you? You were mistaken. Would any girl with an ounce of sense marry a man who refuses to do the least little thing she asks him because he is afraid of her father? I shall always be glad to see Orlo Porter fall downstairs and break his neck. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to read his name in The Times obituary column. But marry him? What an idea! No, I am quite content with you, Bertie. By the way, I do dislike that name Bertie. I think I shall call you Harold. Yes, I am perfectly satisfied with you. You have many faults, of course. I shall be pointing some of them out when I am at leisure. For one thing,' she said, not waiting till she was at leisure, 'you smoke too much. You must give that up when we are married. Smoking is just a habit. Tolstoy,' she said, mentioning someone I had not met, 'says that just as much pleasure can be got from twirling the fingers.'
My impulse was to tell her Tolstoy was off his onion, but I choked down the heated words. For all I knew, the man might be a bosom pal of hers and she might resent criticism of him, however justified. And one knew what happened to people, policemen for instance, whose criticism she resented.
'And that silly laugh of yours, you must correct that. If you are amused, a quiet smile is ample. Lord Chesterfield said that since he had had the full use of his reason nobody had ever heard him laugh. I don't suppose you have read Lord Chesterfield's Letters To His Son?'
...Well, of course I hadn't. Bertram Wooster does not read other people's letters. If I were employed in the post office, I wouldn't even read the postcards.
'I will draft out a whole course of reading for you.'
She would probably have gone on to name a few of the authors she had in mind, but at this moment Angelica Briscoe came bursting in.
'Has he brought it yet?' she yipped.
Then she saw Vanessa, added the word 'Golly', and disappeared like an eel into mud. Vanessa followed her with an indulgent eye.
'Eccentric child,' she said.
I agreed that Angelica Briscoe moved in a mysterious way her wonders to perform, and shortly after Vanessa went off, leaving me to totter to a chair and bury my face in my hands.
I was doing this, and very natural, too, considering that I had just become engaged to a girl who was going to try to make me stop smoking, when from outside the front door there came the unmistakable sound of an aunt tripping over a door mat. The next moment, my late father's sister Dahlia staggered in, pirouetted awhile, cursed a bit, recovered her equilibrium and said:
'Has he brought it yet?' |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 11 | I am not, I think, an irascible man, particularly in my dealings with the gentler sex, but when every ruddy female you meet bellows 'Has he brought it yet?' at you, it does something to your aplomb. I gave her a look which I suppose no nephew should have given an aunt, and it was with no little asperity that I said:
'If some of you girls would stop talking as if you were characters in By Order Of The Czar, the world would be a better place. Brought what?'
'The cat, of course, you poor dumb-bell,' she responded in the breezy manner which had made her the popular toast of both the Quorn and the Pytchley fox-hunting organizations. 'Cook's cat. I'm kidnapping it. Or, rather, my agent is acting for me. I told him to bring it here.'
I was reft, as they say, of speech. If there is one thing that affects a nephew's vocal cords, it is the discovery that a loved aunt is all foggy about the difference between right and wrong. Experience over the years ought to have taught me that where this aunt was concerned anything went and the sky was the limit, but nevertheless I was... I know there's a word that just describes it... Ah, yes, I thought I'd get it... I was dumbfounded.
Well, of course, what every woman wants when she has a tale to tell is a dumbfounded audience, and it did not surprise me when she took advantage of my silence to carry on. Naturally aware that her goings-on required a bit of explanation, she made quite a production number of it. I won't say that she omitted no detail however slight, but she certainly didn't condense. She started off at?? m.p.h. thus:
'I must begin by making clear to the meanest intelligence – yours, to take an instance at random– how extremely sticky my position was on coming to stay with the Briscoes. Jimmy, when inviting me to Eggesford Hall, had written in the most enthusiastic terms of his horse Simla's chances in the forthcoming race. He said he was a snip and putting a large bet on him would be like finding money in the street. And I, poor weak woman, allowed myself to be persuaded. I wagered everything I possessed, down to my more intimate garments. It was only after I got here and canvassed local opinion that I realized that Simla was not a snip or anything like a snip. Cook's Potato Chip was just as fast and had just as much staying power. In fact, the thing would probably end in a dead-heat unless, get this, Bertie, unless one of the two animals blew up in its training. And then you came along with your special information about Potato Chip not being able to keep his mind on the race without this cat there to egg him on, and a bright light shone on me. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!" I said to myself. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings!"'
I could have wished that she had phrased it differently, but there was no chance of telling her so. When the aged relative collars the conversation, she collars it.
'I was saying,' she proceeded, 'that I wagered on Simla everything I possessed. Correction. Change that to considerably more than I possessed. If I lost, it would mean touching Tom for a goodish bit before I could brass up, and you know how parting with money always gives him indigestion. You can picture my state of mind. If it hadn't been for Angelica Briscoe, I think I would have had a nervous breakdown. There were moments when only my iron will kept me from shooting up to the ceiling, shrieking like a banshee. The suspense was so terrific.'
I was still dumbfounded, but I managed to say 'Angelica Briscoe?', at a loss to see where she got into the act, and the speaker spoke on.
'Don't tell me you've forgotten her. I would have thought by this time you would have asked her to marry you, which seems to be your normal practice five minutes after you've met any girl who isn't actually repulsive. But I suppose you couldn't see straight after all that port. Angelica, daughter of the Rev. Briscoe. I had a long talk with her after you had left, and I found that she, too, had betted heavily on Simla and was wondering how she could pay up if he lost. I told her about the cat and she was enthusiastically in favour of stealing it, and she solved the problem which had been bothering me, the question of how it could be done. You see, it's not a job that's up everybody's street. Mine, for instance. You have to be like one of those Red Indians I used to read about in Fenimore Cooper's books when I was a child, the fellows who never let a twig snap beneath their feet, and I'm not built for that.'
There was justice in this. I believe the old relative was sylphlike in her youth, but the years have brought with them a certain solidity, and any twig trodden on by her in the evening of her life would go off like the explosion of a gas main.
'But Angelica pointed the way. There's a girl, that Angelica. Only a clergyman's daughter, but with all the executive qualities of a great statesman. She didn't hesitate a moment. Her face lighting up and her eyes sparkling. She said:
'"This is a job for Billy Graham."'
I could not follow her here. The name was familiar to me, but I never associated it with proficiency in the art of removing cats from Spot A to Spot B, especially cats belonging to someone else. Indeed, I should have thought that that was the sort of activity Mr Graham would rather have frowned on, being in his particular line of business.
I mentioned this to the old ancestor, and she told me I had fallen into a natural error.
'His real name is Herbert Graham, but everyone calls him Billy.'
'Why?'
'Rustic humour. There's a lot of that around here. He's the king of the local poachers, and you don't find any twigs snapping beneath his feet. All the gamekeepers for miles around have been trying for years to catch him with the goods, but they haven't a hope. It is estimated that seventy-six point eight per cent of the beer sold in the Goose and Grasshopper is bought by haggard gamekeepers trying to drown their sorrows after being baffled by Billy. I have this on the authority of Angelica, who is a great buddy of his. She told him about our anxiety, and he said he would attend to the matter immediately. He is particularly well situated to carry out operations at the Court, as his niece Marlene is the scullery maid there, so it arouses no suspicion if he is caught hanging around. He can always say he has come to see if she's getting on all right. Really, the whole thing has worked out so smoothly that one feels one is being watched over by Providence.'
I went on being appalled. Her scheme of engaging the services of a hired bravo who would probably blackmail her for the rest of her life shook me to the core. As for Angelica Briscoe, one asked oneself what clergymen's daughters were coming to.
I tried to reason with her.
'You can't do this, old blood relation. It's as bad as nobbling a horse.'
If you think that caused the blush of shame to mantle her cheek, you don't know much about aunts.
'Well, isn't nobbling a horse an ordinary business precaution everyone would take if only they could manage it?' she riposted.
The Woosters never give up. I tried again.
'How about the purity of the turf?'
'No good to me. I like my turf impure. More genuine excitement.'
'What would the Quorn say of this? Or, for the matter of that, the Pytchley?'
'They would send me a telegram wishing me luck. You don't understand these small country meetings. It's not like Epsom or Ascot. A little finesse from time to time is taken for granted. It's expected of you. A couple of years ago Jimmy had a horse called Poonah running at Bridmouth, and a minion of Cook's got hold of the jockey on the eve of the race, lured him into the Goose and Grasshopper and filled him up with strong drink, sending him to the starting post next day with such a hangover that all he wanted to do was sit down and cry. He came in fifth, sobbing bitterly, and went to sleep before he was out of the saddle. Of course Jimmy guessed what had happened, but nothing was ever said about it. No hard feelings on either side. It wasn't till Jimmy fined Cook for moving pigs without a permit that relations became strained.'
I put another point, a shrewd one.
'What happens if this fellow of yours does get caught? His first move will be to give you away, blackening your reputation in Maiden Eggesford beyond repair.'
'He's never caught. He's the local Scarlet Pimpernel. And nothing could blacken my reputation in Maiden Eggesford. I'm much too much the popular pet ever since I sang "Every Nice Girl Loves A Sailor" at the village concert last year. I had them rolling in the aisles. Three encores, and so many bows that I got a crick in the back.'
'Spare me the tale of your excesses,' I said distantly.
'I wore a sailor suit.'
'Please,' I said, revolted.
'And you ought to have seen the notice I got in the Bridmouth Argus, with which is incorporated the Somerset Farmer and the South Country Intelligencer. But I can't stop here all day listening to you. Elsa's got some bores coming to tea and wants me to rally round. Entertain the cat when it arrives. I gather that it is rather the Bohemian type and probably prefers whisky, but try it with a spot of milk.'
And with these words she exited left centre, as full of beans as any aunt that ever stepped.
Jeeves entered. He had his arms full.
'We appear to have this cat, sir,' he said.
I gave him a look, lacklustre to the last drop.
'So he brought it?'
'Yes, sir. A few moments ago.'
'To the back door?'
'Yes, sir. He showed a proper feeling in that.'
'Is he here now?'
'No, sir. He has gone to the Goose and Grasshopper.'
I got down to the res. This was no time for beating about the bush. I needed his advice, and I needed it quick.
'I take it, Jeeves,' I said, 'that seeing the cat at this address you have put two and two together, as the expression is, and realize that there has been dirty work at the crossroads?'
'Yes, sir. I had the advantage of hearing Mrs Travers's observations. She is a lady with a very carrying voice.'
'That expresses it to a nicety. I believe that when hunting in her younger days she could make herself heard in several adjoining counties.'
'I can readily credit it, sir.'
'Well, if you know all about it, there's no need to explain the situation. The problem that confronts us now is where do we go from here?'
'Sir?'
'You know what I mean. I can't just sit here... what's the word?'
'Supinely, sir?'
'That's it. I can't just sit here supinely and allow the rannygazoo to proceed unchecked. The honour of the Woosters is at stake.'
'You are blameless, sir. You did not purloin the cat.'
'No, but a member of my family did. By the way, could she get jugged if the crime were brought home to her?'
'It is difficult to say without consulting a competent legal authority. But an unpleasant scandal would inevitably result.'
'You mean her name would become a hissing and a byword?'
'Substantially that, sir.'
'With disastrous effects on Uncle Tom's digestion. That's bad, Jeeves. We can't have that. You know how he is after the mildest lobster. We must return this cat to Cook.'
'It would seem advisable, sir.'
'You wouldn't care to do it?'
'No, sir.'
'It would be the feudal thing to do.'
'No doubt, sir.'
'One of those vassals in the Middle Ages would have jumped to it.'
'Very possibly, sir.'
'It would take you ten minutes. You could go in the car.'
'I fear that I must continue to plead a nolle prosequi, sir.'
'Then I shall have to see what I can do. Leave me, Jeeves, I want to think.'
'Very good, sir. Would a whisky and soda be of assistance?'
'Rem acu tetigisti,' I said.
Left alone, I gave my problem the cream of the Wooster brain for some time, but without avail, as they say. Try as I would I couldn't seem to hit on a method of getting the cat back to square one which didn't involve a meeting with Pop Cook and his hunting crop, and I didn't want that whistling about my legs. Courageous though the Woosters are, there are things from which they shrink.
I was still thinking when there was a cheery cry from without and the blood froze in my veins as Plank came bounding in. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 12 | The reason why the blood froze in my v. needs little explanation. The dullest eye could have perceived the delicacy of my position. With the cat practically vis-à-vis as you might say and Plank among those present, my predicament was that of a member of the criminal classes who has got away with the Maharajah's ruby and after stashing it among his effects sees a high official of Scotland Yard walk in at the door. Worse, as a matter of fact, because rubies don't talk, whereas cats do. This one had struck me during our brief acquaintance as the taciturn type, content merely to purr, but who knew that, finding itself in unfamiliar surroundings and missing its pal Potato Chip, it would not utter a yowl or two? And a single mew would be enough to plunge me in the soup.
I remember my Aunt Agatha once making me take her revolting son, young Thos, to a play at the Old Vic by the name of Macbeth. Thos slept throughout, but I thought it rather good and the reason I bring it up is because there was a scene in it where Macbeth is giving a big dinner party and the ghost of a fellow called Banquo, whom he has recently murdered, crashes the gate all covered with blood. Macbeth took it big, and the point I'm trying to make is that my feelings on seeing Plank were much the same as his on that occasion. I goggled at him as he would have goggled at a scorpion or tarantula or whatever they have in Africa if on going to bed one night he had found it nestling in his pyjamas.
Plank was very merry and bright.
'I thought I'd come and tell you,' he said, 'that I'm getting my memory back. Pretty soon I'll be remembering every detail of that first meeting of ours. Wrapped in mist at the moment, but light is beginning to seep through. It's often that way with malaria.'
I didn't like the sound of this at all. As I explained earlier, the meeting to which he referred had been one fraught with embarrassment for me, and I would have preferred to let the dead past bury its dead as the fellow said. Well, when I remind you that it concluded with a suggestion on his part that he hit me over the head with a Zulu knob-kerrie, you will probably gather that it had not been conducted throughout in an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality.
'One thing I remember,' he proceeded, 'is that you were very keen on Rugby football, which of course is the great interest of my life, and I told you my village team was shaping well and showed great promise. And by an extraordinary stroke of luck I've got a new vicar, chap called Pinker, who was an international prop forward. Played for Oxford four years and got I don't know how many English caps. He pulls the whole side together, besides preaching an excellent sermon.'
Nothing could have pleased me more than to hear that my old friend Stinker Pinker was giving satisfaction, and if it had not been for the dark shadow of the cat brooding over us I might quite have enjoyed this little get-together. For he was an entertaining companion, as these far-flung chaps so often are, and told me a lot I hadn't known before about tsetse flies and what to do if cornered by a charging rhinoceros. But in the middle of one of his best stories – he had just got to where the natives seemed friendly, so he decided to stay the night – he broke off, cocked his head sideways, and said:
'What was that?'
I had heard it, too, of course. But I preserved my poise.
'What was what?' I said.
'I heard a cat.'
I continued to wear the mask. I laughed a light laugh.
'Oh, that was my man Jeeves. He imitates cats.'
'He does, eh?'
'It gives him a passing pleasure.'
'And, I suppose, gets a laugh if he does it at the pub near closing time when everyone's fairly tight. I had a native bearer once who could imitate the mating call of the male puma.'
'Really?'
'So that even female pumas were deceived. They used to come flocking round the camp in dozens, and were as sick as mud when they found it was only a native bearer. He was the one I was telling you we had to bury before sundown. Which reminds me. How are those spots of yours?'
'Completely disappeared.'
'Not always a good sign. It's bad if they work inward and get mixed up with the blood stream.'
'Doctor Murgatroyd expected them to disappear.'
'He ought to know.'
'I have great confidence in him.'
'So have I, in spite of those whiskers.' He paused, and laughed amusedly. 'Odd, the passage of time.'
'Pretty odd,' I conceded.
'Old Jimpy Murgatroyd. You'd never think, to look at him now, that when I knew him as a boy he was about the best wing-three we ever had at Haileybury. Fast as a streak and never failed to give the reverse pass. He scored two tries against Bedford, one of them from our twenty-five, and dropped a goal against Tonbridge.'
Though not having a clue to what he was talking about, I said 'Really?' and he said 'Absolutely', and I think we should have had a lot more about E. Jimpson Murgatroyd the boy, but at this moment the cat came on the air again and he changed the subject.
'Listen. Wouldn't you swear that was a cat? That man of yours certainly makes it lifelike.'
'Just a knack.'
'A gift, I'd call it. Good animal-impersonators don't grow on every bush. I never had another bearer like the puma chap. Plenty of fellows who could do you a passable screech owl, but that's not the same thing. It's lucky Cook isn't here.'
'Why do you say that?'
'Because he would insist on being confronted by what he imagined to be his cat and would tear the place apart to get at it. He wouldn't believe for a moment that it was your man practising his art. You see, a very valuable cat belonging to Cook has vanished, and he is convinced that rival interests have stolen it. He talked of calling Scotland Yard in. But I must be getting along. I only stopped by to tell you about the remarkable improvement in my memory. It's all coming back. It won't be long before I shall be remembering why I thought your name was something that began with Al. Could it have been a nickname of some sort?'
'I don't think so.'
'Not short for Alka-Seltzer, or something like that? Well, no good worrying about it now. It'll come. It'll come.'
I couldn't imagine what had given him this idea that my name began with Al, but it was a small point and I didn't linger on it. No sooner had he beetled off than I was calling Jeeves in for a conference.
When he came, he was full of apologies. He seemed to think he had let the young master down.
'I fear you will have thought me remiss, sir, but I found it impossible to stifle the animal's cries completely. I trust they were not overheard by your visitor.'
'They were, and the visitor was none other than Major Plank, from whom you saved me so adroitly at Totleigh-in-the-Wold. He is closely allied to Pop Cook, and I don't mind telling you that when he blew in I was as badly rattled as Macbeth, if you know what I mean, that time he was sitting down to dinner and the ghost turned up.'
'I know the scene well, sir. "Never shake thy gory locks at me," he said.'
'And I don't blame him. Plank heard those yowls.'
'I am extremely sorry, sir.'
'Not your fault. Cats will be cats. I was taken aback at the moment, like Macbeth, but I kept my head. I told him you were a cat-imitator brushing up your cat-imitating.'
'A very ingenious ruse, sir.'
'Yes, I didn't think it was too bad.'
'Did it satisfy the gentleman?'
'It seemed to. But what of Pop Cook?'
'Sir?'
'What's worrying me is the possibility of Cook being less inclined to swallow the story and coming here to search the premises. And when I say the possibility, I mean the certainty. Figure it out for yourself. He finds me up at Eggesford Court apparently swiping the cat. He learns that I am lunching at Eggesford Hall. "Ha!" he says to himself, "one of the Briscoe gang, is he? And I caught him with the cat actually on his person." Do you suppose that when Plank gets back and tells him he heard someone imitating cats chez me, he is going to believe that what Plank heard was a human voice? I doubt it, Jeeves. He will be at my door in ten seconds flat, probably accompanied by the entire local police force.'
My remorseless reasoning had its effect. A slight wiggling of the nose showed that. Nothing could ever make Jeeves say 'Gorblimey!', but I could see that was the word that would have sprung to his lips if he hadn't stopped it halfway. His comment on my obiter dicta was brief and to the point.
'We must act, sir!'
'And without stopping to pick daisies by the wayside. Are you still resolved not to return this cat to status quo?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Sam Weller would have done it like a shot to oblige Mr Pickwick.'
'It is not my place to return cats, sir. But if I might make a suggestion.'
'Speak on, Jeeves.'
'Why should we not place the matter in the hands of the man Graham?'
'Of course! I never thought of that.'
'He is a poacher of established reputation, and a competent poacher is what we need.'
'I see what you mean. His experience enables him to move around without letting a twig snap beneath his feet, which is the first essential when you are returning cats.'
'Precisely, sir. With your permission I will go to the Goose and Grasshopper and tell him that you wish to see him.'
'Do so, Jeeves,' I said, and only a few minutes later I found myself closeted with Herbert (Billy) Graham.
The first thing that impressed itself on me as I gave him the once-over was his air of respectability. I had always supposed that poachers were tough-looking eggs who wore whatever they could borrow from the nearest scarecrow and shaved only once a week. He, to the contrary, was neatly clad in formfitting tweeds and was shaven to the bone. His eyes were frank and blue, his hair a becoming grey. I have seen more raffish Cabinet ministers. He looked like someone who might have sung in the sainted Briscoe's church choir, as I was informed later he did, being the possessor of a musical tenor voice which came in handy for the anthem and when they were doing those 'miserable sinner' bits in the Litany.
He was about the height and tonnage of Fred Astaire, and he had the lissomness which is such an asset in his chosen profession. One could readily imagine him flitting silently through the undergrowth with a couple of rabbits in his grasp, always two jumps ahead of the gamekeepers who were trying to locate him. The old ancestor had compared him to the Scarlet Pimpernel, and a glance was enough to tell me that the tribute was well deserved. I thought how wise Jeeves had been in suggesting that I entrust to him the delicate mission which I had in mind. When it comes to returning cats that have been snitched from their lawful homes, you need a specialist. Where Lloyd George or Winston Churchill would have failed, this Graham, I knew would succeed.
'Good afternoon, sir,' he said, 'you wished to see me?'
I got down without delay to the nub. No sense in humming or, for the matter of that, hawing.
'It's about this cat.'
'I delivered it according to instructions.'
'And now I want you to take it back.'
He seemed perplexed.
'Back, sir?'
'To where you got it.'
'I do not quite understand, sir.'
'I'll explain.'
I think I outlined the position of affairs rather well, making it abundantly clear that a Wooster could not countenance what was virtually tantamount, if tantamount is the word I want, to nobbling a horse and that the cat under advisement must be restored to its proprietor with all possible slippiness, and he listened attentively. But when I had finished, he shook his head.
'Out of the question, sir.'
'Out of the question? Why? You purloined it.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then you can put it back.'
'No, sir. You are overlooking certain vital facts.'
'Such as?'
'The theft to which you refer was perpetrated as a personal favour to Miss Briscoe, whom I have known from childhood, and a sweet child she was.'
I thought of trying to move him by saying that I had been a sweet child, too, but I knew that this was not the case, having frequently been informed to that effect by my Aunt Agatha, so I let it go. There was not much chance, of course, that he had ever met my Aunt Agatha and discussed me with her, but it was not worth risking.
'Furthermore,' he proceeded, and I was impressed, as I had been from the start, by the purity of his diction. He had evidently had a good education, though I doubted if he was an Oxford man. 'Furthermore,' he said, 'I have five pounds on Potato Chip with the landlord of the Goose and Grasshopper.'
'Aha!' I said to myself, and I'll tell you why I said 'Aha' to myself. I said it because the scales had fallen from my eyes and I saw all. Plainly that stuff about personal favours to sweet children had been the merest bobbledy-gook. He had been actuated throughout entirely by commercial motives. When Angelica Briscoe had come to him, he would have started with a regretful nolle prosequi on the ground that he had this fiver on Potato Chip and was obliged to protect his investment. She had said, would he do it for ten quid, which would leave him with a nice profit? He had right-hoed. Angelica had then touched Aunt Dahlia for ten and the deal had gone through. I have often thought I would have made a good detective. I can reason and deduce.
Everything was simple now that the matter could be put on a business basis. All that remained was to arrange terms. It would have to be a ready-money transaction, he being the shrewd man he was, and fortunately I had brought wads of cash with me for betting-on-the-course-at-Bridmouth purposes, so there was no problem.
'How much do you want?' I said.
'Sir?'
'To de-cat my premises and restore this feline to the strength.'
A sort of film came over his frank blue eyes, as I suppose it always did when he talked business, though not when singing in the choir. Fellows at the Drones have told me they notice the same thing in Oofy Prosser, the club millionaire, when they try to float a small loan with him to see them through till next Wednesday.
'How much do I want, sir?'
'Yes. Give it a name. We won't haggle.'
He pursed his lips.
'I'm afraid,' he said, having unpursed them, 'I couldn't do it as cheap as I'd like, sir. You see, what with them having discovered the animal's absence by this time, the hue and cry, as you might say, will be up and everybody at Mr Cook's residence on the qui vive or alert. I'd be in the position of a spy in wartime carrying secret dispatches through the enemy's lines with every eye on the look-out for him. I'd have to make it twenty pounds.'
I was relieved. I had been expecting something higher. He, too, seemed to feel that he had erred on the side of moderation, for he immediately added:
'Or, rather, thirty.'
'Thirty!'
'Thirty, sir.'
'Let's haggle,' I said.
But when I suggested twenty-five, a nicer-looking sort of number than thirty, he shook his grey head regretfully, so we went on haggling, and he haggled better than me, so that eventually we settled on thirty-five.
It wasn't one of my best haggling days. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 13 | One of the questions put to me when I won that Scripture Knowledge prize at my private school was, I recall, 'What do you know of the deaf adder?', and my grip on Holy Writ enabled me to reply correctly that it stopped its ears and would not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never so wisely, and after my session with Herbert Graham I knew how that charmer must have felt. If I had been in a position to compare notes with him, we would have agreed that the less we saw of adders in the future the better it would be for us.
Nobody could have charmed more wisely than me as I urged Herbert Graham to lower his price, and nobody could have stopped his ears more firmly than did that human serpent. Talk about someone not meeting you half-way; he didn't go an inch in the direction of coming to a peaceful settlement. Thirty-five quid, I mean to say. Absolutely monstrous. But that's what happens when you're up against it and the other fellow holds all the cards.
Haggling is a thing that takes it out of you, and it was a limp Bertram Wooster who after Graham and cat had set forth on their journey sat skimming listlessly through the opening pages of By Order Of The Czar. And I had read enough to make me wish I had taken out The Mystery Of A Hansom Cab instead, when the telephone rang.
It was, as I had feared, Aunt Dahlia. Sooner or later, I had of course realized, exchanges with the aged relative were inevitable, but I could have faced them better if they could have been postponed for a while. In my enfeebled condition I was in no shape to cope with aunts. A man who has just become engaged to a girl whose whole personality gives him a sinking feeling and who has had to pay thirty-five quid to a bloodsucker and another twopence to a lending library for a dud book is seldom in mid-season form.
The old ancestor, on the other hand, little knowing that she was about to get a sock on the jaw which would shake her to her foundation garments, was all lightheartedness and joviality.
'Hullo, fathead,' she said. 'What news on the Rialto?'
'What, what, where?' I responded, not getting it.
'The cat. Has he brought it?'
'Yes.'
'Is it in your bosom?'
I saw the time had come. Shrink though I might from revealing the awful truth, it had to be done. I took a deep breath. It was some small comfort to feel that she was at the end of the telephone wire a mile and a half away. You can never be certain what aunts will do when at close quarters. Far less provocation in my earlier days had led this one to buffet me soundly on the side of the head.
'No,' I said, 'it's gone.'
'Gone? Gone where?'
'Billy Graham has taken it back.'
'Taken it back?'
'To Eggesford Court. I told him to.'
'You told him to?'
'Yes. You see –'
That concluded for a considerable space of time my share in the duologue, for she got into high with the promptness which I had anticipated. She spoke as follows:
'Hell's bells! Ye gods! Angels and ministers of grace defend us! He brought the cat, and you deliberately turned it from your door, though you knew what it meant to me. Letting the side down! Failing me in my hour of need! Bringing my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave! And after all I've done for you, you miserable ungrateful worm. Do you remember me telling you that when you were a babe and suckling and looking, I may add in passing, like a badly poached egg, you nearly swallowed your rubber comforter, and if I hadn't jerked it out in time, you would have choked to death? It would go hard for you if you swallowed your rubber comforter now. I wouldn't stir a finger. Do you remember when you had measles and I gave up hours of my valuable time to playing tiddlywinks with you and letting you beat me without a murmur?'
I could have disputed that. My victories had been due entirely to skill. I haven't played much tiddlywinks lately, but in those boyhood days I was pretty hot stuff at the pastime. I did not mention this, however, because she was proceeding and I didn't like to interrupt the flow.
'Do you remember when you were at that private school of yours I used to send you parcels of food at enormous expense because you said you were about to expire from starvation? Do you remember when you were at Oxford –'
'Stop, aged r.,' I cried, for she had touched me deeply with these reminiscences of the young Wooster. 'You're breaking my heart.'
'You haven't got a heart. If you had, you wouldn't have driven that poor defenceless cat out into the snow. All I asked of you was to give it a bed in the spare room for a few days and so place my financial affairs on a sound basis, but you wouldn't do a trifling service for me which would have cost you nothing except a bob or two for milk and fish. What, I ask myself, has become of the old-fashioned nephew to whom his aunt's wishes were law? They don't seem to be making them nowadays.'
At this point Nature took its toll. She had to pause to take in breath, and I was enabled to speak.
'Old blood relation,' I said, 'you are under a what-is-it.'
'What is what?'
'The thing people get under. It's on the tip of my tongue. Begins with mis. Ah, I've got it, misapprehension. I've heard Jeeves use the word. Your view of my behaviour with the above cat is all cockeyed. I disapproved of your pinching it, because I felt that such an action stained the escutcheon of the Woosters, but I would have given it bed and board, however reluctantly, had it not been for Plank.'
'Plank?'
'Major Plank the explorer.'
'What's he got to do with it?'
'Everything. You've probably heard of Major Plank.'
'I haven't.'
'Well, he's one of those chaps who have native bearers and things and go exploring. Who was it out in Africa somewhere who met the other fellow and presumed he was Doctor something? Plank is, or was, in the same line of business.'
A snort came over the wire, nearly fusing it.
'Bertie,' said the blood relation, now having taken aboard an adequate supply of air, 'I am hampered by being at the other end of the telephone, but were I within reach of you I would give you one on the side of the head which you wouldn't forget in a hurry. Tell me in a few simple words what you think you're talking about.'
'I'm talking about Plank. And what I'm trying to establish is that Plank, though an explorer, is not exploring now. He is staying with Cook at Eggesford Court.'
'So what?'
'So jolly well this. He dropped in on me shortly after Billy Graham had clocked in and left the cat. It was with Jeeves in the kitchen, having one for the tonsils. And while Plank was there it yowled, and Plank of course heard it. You don't need to be told the upshot. Plank goes back to Cook, tells him he thought he heard a cat at Wooster's address, and Cook, already suspicious of me after our unfortunate encounter, comes down here like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts all gleaming with purple and gold. I ought to add that I told Plank that the cat he heard was not a cat but Jeeves imitating cats, and he believed it all right because explorers are simple-minded bozos who believe everything they're told, but will the story get over with Cook? Not a hope. There was nothing for me to do but tell Billy Graham to return the cat.'
I suppose one of the top-notch barristers could have put it more clearly, but not much more. She was silent for a space. Musing, no doubt, and weighing this against that. Finally she spoke.
'I see.'
'Good.'
'You appear not to have been such a non-co-operative hellhound as I thought you were.'
'Excellent.'
'Sorry I ticked you off with such vigour.'
'Quite all right, aged relative. Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner.'
'Yes, I suppose it was the only thing you could do. But don't expect any hallelujahs from me. My whole plan of campaign has gone phut.'
'Oh, I don't know. Perhaps everything will be all right. Simla may win anyway.'
'Yes, but one did like to feel that one was betting on a certainty. It's no good trying to cheer me up. I feel awful.'
'Me, too.'
'What's wrong with you?'
'I'm engaged to be married to a girl I can't stand the sight of.'
'What, another? Who is it this time?'
'Vanessa Cook.'
'Any relation to old Cook?'
'His daughter.'
'How did it happen?'
'I proposed to her a year ago, and she turned me down, and just now she blew in and said she had changed her mind and would marry me. Came as a nasty shock.'
'You should have told her to go and boil her head.'
'I couldn't.'
'Why couldn't you?'
'Not preux.'
'Not what?'
'Preux. P for potted meat, r for rissole, e for egg nog, and so on. You've heard of a preux chevalier? It is my aim to be one.'
'Oh, well, if you go about being Preux, you must expect to get into trouble. But I wouldn't worry. You're bound to wriggle out of it somehow. You told me once that you had faith in your star. The girls you've been engaged to and have escaped from would reach, if placed end to end, from Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner. I won't believe you're married till I see the bishop and assistant clergy mopping their foreheads and saying, "Well, that's that. We've really got the young blighter off at last."'
And with these words of cheer she rang off.
You would rather have expected that it would have been with a light heart that I returned to By Order Of The Czar. Such, however, was not the case. I had squared myself with the old flesh-and-blood and so had put a stopper on her wrath, a continuance of which might have resulted in her barring me from her table for an indefinite period, thus depriving me of the masterpieces of her French chef Anatole, God's gift to the gastric juices, but, as I say, the h. was not l. I could not but mourn for the collapse of the aged relative's hopes and dreams, a collapse for which I, though a mere toy in the hands of Fate, was bound to consider myself responsible.
I said as much to Jeeves when he came in with the materials for the pre-dinner cocktail.
'My heart is heavy, Jeeves,' I said, after expressing gratification at the sight of the fixings.
'Indeed, sir? Why is that?'
'I have just been having a painful scene with Aunt Dahlia. Well, when I say scene that's not quite the right word, the conversation having been conducted over the telephone. Did Graham get off all right?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Accompanied by cat?'
'Yes, sir.'
'That's what I was telling her, and she became a bit emotional. You never hunted with the Quorn or the Pytchley, did you, Jeeves? It seems to do something to the vocabulary. Lends a speaker eloquence. The old flesh-and-blood didn't have to pause to pick her words, they came out like bullets from a machine-gun. I was thankful we weren't talking face to face. Goodness knows what might have happened if we had been.'
'You should have told Mrs Travers the facts relating to Major Plank, sir.'
'I did, the moment I could get a word in edgeways, and it was that that acted like... like what?'
'Balm in Gilead, sir?'
'Exactly. I was going to say manna in the wilderness, but balm in Gilead hits it off better. She calmed down and admitted that I couldn't have done anything else but return the cat.'
'Most satisfactory, sir.'
'Yes, that part of it is all pretty smooth, but there's one other thing that's weighing on me a bit. I'm engaged to be married.' |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 14 | As always when I tell him I'm engaged to be married, he betrayed no emotion, continuing to look as if he had been stuffed by a good taxidermist. It is not his place, he would say if you asked him, to go beyond the basic formalities on these occasions.
'Indeed, sir?' he said.
Usually this about covers it, and I don't discuss my predicament with him. I feel it wouldn't be seemly, if that's the word, and I know he would feel it wouldn't be seemly, so with both of us feeling it wouldn't be seemly we talk of other matters.
But this was a special occasion. Never before had I become betrothed to someone who would make me cut out smoking and cocktails, and in my opinion this made the subject a legitimate one for debate. When you're up against it as I was, it is essential to exchange views with a mastermind, if you can get hold of one, however unseemly it may be.
So when he added, 'May I offer my congratulations, sir,' I replied with lines which were not on the routine.
'No, Jeeves, you may not, not by a jugful. You see before you a man who is as near to being what is known as a toad at Harrow as a man can be who was educated at Eton. I'm in sore straits, Jeeves.'
'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'
'You'll be sorrier when I explain further. Have you ever seen a garrison besieged by howling savages, with their ammunition down to the last box of cartridges, the water supply giving out and the United States Marines nowhere in sight?'
'Not to my recollection, sir.'
'Well, my position is roughly that of such a garrison, except that compared with me they're sitting pretty. Compared with me they haven't a thing to worry about.'
'You fill me with alarm, sir.'
'I bet I do, and I haven't even started yet. I will begin by saying that Miss Cook, to whom I'm engaged, is a lady for whom I have the utmost esteem and respect, but on certain matters we do not... what's the expression?'
'See eye to eye, sir?'
'That's right. And unfortunately those matters are the what-d'you-call-it of my whole policy. What is it that policies have?'
'I think the word for which you are groping, sir, may possibly be cornerstone.'
'Thank you, Jeeves. She disapproves of a variety of things which are the cornerstone of my policy. Marriage with her must inevitably mean that I shall have to cast them from my life, for she has a will of iron and will have no difficulty in making her husband jump through hoops and snap sugar off his nose. You get what I mean?'
'I do, sir. A very colourful image.'
'Cocktails, for instance, will be barred. She says they are bad for the liver. Have you noticed, by the way, how frightfully lax everything's getting now? In Queen Victoria's day a girl would never have dreamed of mentioning livers in mixed company.'
'Very true, sir. Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis.'
'That, however, is not the worst.'
'You horrify me, sir.'
'At a pinch I could do without cocktails. It would be agony, but we Woosters can rough it. But she says I must give up smoking.'
'This was indeed the most unkindest cut of all, sir.'
'Give up smoking, Jeeves!'
'Yes, sir. You will notice that I am shuddering.'
'The trouble is that she is greatly under the influence of a pal of hers called Tolstoy. I've never met him, but he seems to have the most extraordinary ideas. You won't believe this, Jeeves, but he says that no one needs to smoke, as equal pleasure can be obtained by twirling the fingers. The man must be an ass. Imagine a posh public dinner – one of those "decorations will be worn" things. The royal toast has been drunk, strong men are licking their lips at the thought of cigars, and the toastmaster bellows "Gentlemen, you may twirl your fingers." Don't tell me there wouldn't be a flat feeling, a sense of disappointment. Do you know anything about this fellow Tolstoy? You ever heard of him?'
'Oh, yes, sir. He was a very famous Russian novelist.'
'Russian, eh? Well, there you are. And a novelist? He didn't write By Order Of The Czar, did he?'
'I believe not, sir.'
'I thought he might have under another name. You say "was". Is he no longer with us?'
'No, sir. He died some years ago.'
'Good for him. Twirl your fingers! Too absurd. I'd laugh only she says I mustn't laugh because another pal of hers, called Chesterfield, didn't. Well, she needn't worry. The way things are shaping I haven't anything to laugh about. For I've not mentioned the principal objection to the marriage. Don't jump to the hasty conclusion that I mean because a father-in-law like Cook is included in the package deal. I grant you that that's enough by itself to darken the horizon, but what's on my mind is the thought of Orlo Porter.'
'Ah, yes, sir.'
I gave him an austere look.
'If you can't say anything better than "Ah, yes", Jeeves, say nothing.'
'Very good, sir.'
'The thought, as I was saying, of Orlo Porter. We have already touched on his testy disposition, the iron-band like muscles of his brawny arms, and his jealousy. The mere suspicion that I was inflicting my beastly society, as he put it, on Miss Cook was enough to make him tell me that he would tear out my insides with his bare hands. What'll he do when he finds I'm engaged to her?'
'Surely, sir, the lady having so unequivocably rejected him, he can scarcely blame you –'
'For filling the vacant spot? Don't you believe it. He'll take it for granted that I persuaded her to give him the pink slip. Nothing will drive it out of his nut. The belief that I'ma Grade A snake in the grass, and we all know what to expect from snakes in the g. No, we have got to be frightfully subtle and think of some plan for drawing his fangs. Otherwise my insides won't be worth a moment's purchase.'
I was about to go on to ask him if he still had the cosh – or blackjack, to use the American term – which he had taken away from Aunt Dahlia's son Bonzo some months previously. Bonzo had bought it to use on a schoolmate he disliked, and we all thought he would be better without it. It was, of course, precisely what I needed to ease the tenseness of the O. Porter situation. Armed with this weapon, I could defy O. Porter without a qualm. But before I could speak the telephone tootled in the hall. I waved a hand in its direction.
'Answer that, would you mind, Jeeves, and say I've gone for a brisk walk, as recommended by my medical adviser. It'll be Aunt Dahlia, and though she was in a reasonable frame of mind at the conclusion of our recent talk, there's no telling how long these reasonable frames of mind will last.'
'Very good, sir.'
'You know what women are.'
'I do, indeed, sir.'
'Especially aunts.'
'Yes, sir. My aunt –'
'Tell me all about her later.'
'Any time you wish, sir.'
I remember Jeeves once saying of my friend Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright – it was when a long shot he had backed had come in first by a head, only to be disqualified owing to some infringement of the rules by its jockey – that melancholy had marked him for her own, and it was the same with me now as I sat totting up the score and realizing how extraordinarily deeply I had been plunged in the soup.
Compared with other items on the list of my troubles it was perhaps a minor cause for melancholy that the old ancestor should be trying to get me on the telephone. Nevertheless, it added one more thing to worry about. It could only mean, I felt, that she had come out of the amiable mood she had been in when last heard from and had thought of a lot more nasty cracks to make on the subject of my failure to reach the standard which she considered adequate in a nephew. And I was in no shape to listen to destructive criticism when we next met, especially when delivered by a voice trained by years of shouting 'Gone away' at foxes to reduce the hearer's nervous system to pulp.
When, therefore, Jeeves returned, my first observation was:
'What did she say?'
'It was not Mrs Travers, sir, it was Mr Porter.'
I was more thankful than ever that I had got him to answer the phone.
'Well, what did he say?' I asked, though I could have made a rough guess.
'I regret that I am not able to report the entire conversation verbatim, sir. I found the gentleman incoherent at the outset. I gathered that he was under the impression that he was addressing you, and emotion interfered with the clarity of his diction. I informed him of my identity, and he moderated his verbal speed. I was thus enabled to follow him. He gave me several messages to give to you.'
'Messages?'
'Yes, sir, embodying what he proposed to do to you when next you met. His remarks were in the main of a crudely surgical nature, and many of the plans he outlined would be extremely difficult to put into practice. His threat, for instance, to pull off your head and make you swallow it.'
'He said that?'
'Among other things more or less on the same trend. But you need have no apprehension, sir.'
It shows the state to which the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as somebody called them, had reduced me that I didn't laugh a hacking laugh at this. I didn't even utter a sardonic 'Oh, yeah' or 'Says you'. I merely buried the face in the hands, and he continued:
'Before I left the room you were speaking of the necessity of drawing Mr Porter's fangs, as you very aptly put it. It gives me great pleasure to say that I have succeeded in doing this.'
I thought I couldn't have heard him correctly, and asked him to repeat his amazing statement. He did so, and I looked at him astounded. You might suppose that I would have been used by this time to seeing him pull rabbits out of a hat with a flick of the wrist and solve in a flash problems which had defied the best efforts of the finest minds, but it always comes fresh to me, depriving me of breath and causing the eyeballs to rotate in the parent sockets.
Then I saw what must be behind the easy confidence with which he had spoken.
'So you remembered the cosh?' I said.
'Sir?'
'And you have it in your possession.'
'I do not quite understand you, sir.'
'I thought you meant that you still had that cosh which you took away from Aunt Dahlia's Bonzo and were going to give it to me so that I would be armed when Porter made his spring.'
'Oh, no, sir. The instrument to which you refer is among my effects at our London residence.'
'Then how did you draw his fangs?'
'By reminding him that you have taken out an accident policy with him and drawing his attention to the inevitable displeasure of his employers if through him they were mulcted in a substantial sum of money. I had little difficulty in persuading the gentleman that anything in the nature of aggressive action on his part would be a mistake.'
I repeated the stare. His resource and ingenuity had stunned me.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'your resource and ingenuity have stunned me. Porter is baffled.'
'Yes, sir.'
'Unless you would prefer "thwarted".'
'Baffled I think is stronger.'
'Talk of drawing his fangs. His dentist will have to fit him with a completely new set.'
'Yes, sir, but we must not forget that the removal of Mr Porter as a menace is only half a battle. I hesitate to touch on a delicate subject...'
'Touch on, Jeeves.'
'But I gathered, partly from what you were saying and partly from the tone of your voice as you said it when you were speaking of her plans for your future, that the idea of marriage with Miss Cook is not wholly agreeable to you, and it occurred to me that much unpleasantness would be avoided, were the lady and Mr Porter to be reconciled.'
'It would indeed. But –'
'You were about to say, sir, that in your opinion the rift is too serious for that?'
'Well, isn't it?'
'I think not.'
'Your blow by blow description of the hostilities certainly gave me the impression that they had parted brass rags pretty finally. How about that lily-livered poltroon?'
'You have placed your finger on the real trouble, sir. Miss Cook applied that term to Mr Porter because of his refusal to approach her father and demand the money which the latter is holding in trust for him.'
'Well, according to you he said he wouldn't approach her father in a million years.'
'The situation has been changed by your becoming affianced to the woman he loves. To restore himself to Miss Cook's esteem he would face perils from which formerly he shrank.'
I got what he meant, but I didn't buy the idea. I still saw Orlo shrinking.
'Furthermore, sir, if you were to go to Mr Porter and point out to him that success might crown his efforts if he were to choose a moment shortly after dinner to approach Mr Cook, he would take the risk. A gentleman mellowed by a good dinner is always more amenable to overtures of any kind than one who is waiting for his food, as I understood from his conversation that Mr Cook was when Mr Porter discussed business with him on a former occasion.'
I started visibly. He had electrified me.
'Jeeves,' I said, 'I believe you've got something.'
'I think so, sir.'
'I'll go and see Porter at once. He's probably at the Goose and Grasshopper drowning his sorrows in gin and ginger ale. And let me say once more that you stand alone. You have made my day. I wish there was something I could do for you by way of return.'
'There is, sir.'
'It's yours, even unto half my kingdom. Give me a name.'
'I should be extremely grateful if you would allow me to spend the night at my aunt's.'
'You want to go to Liverpool? A long journey.'
'No, sir. My aunt returned this morning and is at her home in the village.'
'Then go to her, Jeeves, and heaven smile upon your reunion.'
'Thank you very much, sir. Should you have need of my services, the address is Balmoral, Mafeking Road, care of Mrs P. B. Pigott.'
'Oh, she isn't a Jeeves?'
'No, sir.'
He shimmered out, to return a moment later with the information that Mr Graham was in the kitchen and would be glad of a word with me. And it shows the extent to which the strain and rush of life at Maiden Eggesford had taken its toll that for a moment the name conveyed nothing to me. Then memory returned to its throne, and I felt as anxious to see Mr Graham as he apparently was to see me. Such was my confidence in him as a returner of cats that I could not imagine him failing in his mission, but I was naturally anxious to have the full details.
'In the kitchen, you say?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then bung him in, Jeeves. There is no one I'd rather give audience to.'
And the hour, which was getting on for six o'clock, produced the man.
I was struck, as before, by the intense respectability of his appearance. He looked as though no rabbit or pheasant need entertain the slightest tremors in his presence, and one could readily picture him as the backbone of the choir when anthem time came along. His gentle 'Good evening, sir' was a treat to listen to.
'Good evening,' I said in my turn. 'Well? You accomplished your mission? The cat is back at the old stand?'
His eyes darkened, as if I had brought to the surface a secret sorrow.
'Well, yes and no, sir.'
'How do you mean, yes and no?'
'To the first of your questions the answer is in the affirmative. I did accomplish my mission. But unfortunately the cat is not at the old stand.'
'I don't get you.'
'It is here, sir, in your kitchen. I took it to Eggesford Court as per contract and released it near the stables and started on my homeward journey, happy to have earned the money which you so generously paid me for my services. Picture my astonishment and dismay when on reaching the village I discovered that the cat had followed me. It is a very affectionate animal, and we had become great friends. Would you wish me to take it back again? Of course I should not feel justified in charging my full fee, so shall we say ten pounds?'
If you want to know how this proposition affected me, I can put it in a nutshell by saying that I read him like a book. Many people are led by my frank and open countenance into thinking that I am one of the mugs, but I know a twister when I see one and I was in no doubt that one of these stood before me now.
What stopped me drawing myself to my full height and denouncing him was the reflection that the blighter had me in a cleft stick. Refusal to come across would mean him going to Pop Cook and getting a handsome fee from him for revealing that the aged relative had paid him to purloin the cat, and in spite of what she had said about her popularity in Maiden Eggesford, resulting from her rendering 'Every Nice Girl Loves A Sailor' in a sailor suit, I knew that her name would be mud. I still wasn't sure she couldn't even be jugged, and what a sock in the eye that would give Uncle Tom's digestion.
I disbursed the tenner. Not blithely, but I disbursed it, and he went on his way.
For some little time after he had left I sat wrapped in thought. And then, just as I was getting up to go and see Orlo, in came Vanessa Cook. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 15 | She was accompanied by a dog of about the size of a young elephant, yellow in colour and with large ears sticking up, with whom I would willingly have fraternized, but after drinking in the delicious scent of my trouser legs for a brief moment it saw something out in the street which aroused its interest and left us.
Vanessa, meanwhile, had picked up my By Order Of The Czar, and I could see by the way she sniffed that she was about to become critical. There had always been a strong strain of book-reviewer blood in her.
'Trash,' she said. 'It really is time you began reading something worth while. I don't expect you to start off with Turgenev and Dostoievsky' she said, evidently alluding to a couple of Russian exiles she had met in London who did a bit of writing on the side, 'but there are plenty of good books which are easier and at the same time educational. I have brought one with me,' she went on, and I saw that she was holding a slim volume bound in limp purple leather with some sort of decoration in gold on the cover, and I shuddered strongly. To a man who has seen as much of life as I have there is always something sinister in a book bound in limp purple leather. 'It is a collection of whimsical essays, The Prose Ramblings Of A Rhymester, by Reginald Sprockett, a brilliant young poet from whom the critics expect great things. His style has been much praised, but it is the thought in these little gems to which I particularly call your attention. I will leave them here. I must be off. I only came to bring you the book...'
You probably think I reeled beneath this blow, but actually my heart was not so heavy as it might have been, for my quick brain had perceived how this would do me a bit of good. The revolting object would make an admirable Christmas present for my Aunt Agatha, always a difficult person to find Yule-Tide gifts for. I was warming myself with this thought, when Vanessa continued.
'Be very careful not to lose it. It has Reginald's autograph in it,' and glancing at the title page I saw that this was indeed so, which would have bucked Aunt Agatha up no little, but in addition to inscribing the slim volume with his own foul name the blighter had inscribed Vanessa's. 'To Vanessa, the fairest of the fair, from a devoted admirer,' he had written, dishing my plans completely. That was when my heart got heavy again. For though she hadn't definitely said so, something told me that later on I would be expected to pass an examination on the little opus, and failure would have the worst effects.
Having said she must be off, she naturally stayed on for another half-hour, much of which time was devoted to pointing out additional defects in my spiritual make-up which had occurred to her since our last meeting. It just showed how strong the missionary spirit can be in women that she could contemplate the idea of teaming up with a dubious character like B. Wooster. Her best friends would have warned her against it. 'Cast him into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth,' they would have said. 'No good trying to patch him up, he's hopeless.'
It was my membership of the Drones Club that now formed the basis of her observations. She didn't like the Drones Club, and she made it quite clear that at the conclusion of the honeymoon I would cross its threshold only over her dead body.
So, reckoning up the final score, the Bertram Wooster who signed the charge sheet in the vestry after the wedding ceremony would be a non-smoker, a teetotaller (for I knew it would come to that) and an ex-member of the Drones, in other words a mere shell of his former self. Little wonder that, as I listened to her, I gulped as Plank's native bearer must have done when they were getting ready to bury him before sundown.
The prospect appalled me, and while it was appalling me Vanessa moved to the door, this time apparently really intending to be off. And she had opened the door, Bertram much too much of a shell of his former self to open it for her, when she started back with a gasping cry.
'Father!' she cried gaspingly. 'He's coming up the garden path.'
'He's coming up the garden path?' I said. I was at a loss to imagine why Pop Cook should be calling on me. I mean to say we weren't on those terms.
'He's stopped to tie his boot lace,' she cried, gaspingly as before, and that concluded her share of the dialogue. With no further words she bounded into the kitchen like a fox pursued by both the Quorn and the Pytchley, slamming the door behind her.
I could appreciate her emotion. She was aware of her parent's distaste for the last of the Woosters, a distaste so marked that he turned mauve and swallowed his lunch the wrong way at the mention of my name, and chez me was the last place he would wish to find her. Orlo Porter had thought the worst on learning of what he called her clandestine visits to the Wooster home, and a father would, of course, think worse than Orlo. Pure though I was as the driven s., a fat chance I had of persuading him that I wasn't a modern Casa something. Not Casabianca. That was the chap who stood on the burning deck. Casanova. I knew I'd get it.
And what he would do to Vanessa in his wrath would be plenty. She was, as I have made clear, a proud beauty, but a father of the calibre of Pop Cook can make even a proud beauty wish she had thought twice before blotting her copybook. He may not be able any longer to whale the tar out of her with his walking stick as in the good old days, but he can cut off her pocket money and send her to stay with her grandmother at Tunbridge Wells, where she will have to look after seven cats and attend divine service three times on Sunday. Yes, one could understand her being perturbed on seeing him tying up his boot lace outside Wee Nooke, which, I forgot to mention earlier, was the name of my GHQ. (It had been built, I learned subsequently, for a female cousin of Mrs Briscoe's who painted water colours.)
And if she was perturbed, I was on the perturbed side, too. It was with some trepidation – in fact, quite a lot of it – that I awaited my visitor's arrival, a trepidation that was not diminished when I saw that he had brought his hunting crop with him.
I hadn't taken to him much at our previous meeting, and I had the feeling that I wasn't going to get very fond of him now, but I will say this for him, that he didn't waste time. He was a man of quick, decisive speech who had no use for tedious preliminaries but came to the point at once. I suppose you have to in order to run a big business successfully.
'Well, Mr Wooster, as I understand you are calling yourself now, it may interest you to know that Major Plank, who had lost his memory, recovered it last night, and he told me all about you.'
It was a nasty knock, and the fact that I had been expecting it didn't make it any better. Oddly enough, I felt no animosity towards Cook, holding Plank the bloke responsible for this awkward situation. Roaming through Africa knee-deep in poisonous snakes of every description and with more man-eating pumas around than you could shake a stick at, he could so easily have passed away, regretted by all. Instead of which, he survived and went about making life tough for harmless typical young men about town who simply wanted to be left alone to restore their delicate health.
Cook was continuing, and getting nastier every moment.
'You are a notorious crook, known to your associates as Alpine Joe, and your latest crime was to try to sell Major Plank a valuable statuette which you had stolen from Sir Watkyn Bassett of Totleigh Towers. You were arrested by Inspector Witherspoon of Scotland Yard, fortunately before you had accomplished your nefarious ends. I presume from the fact that you are at large that you have served your sentence, and you are now in the pay of Colonel Briscoe, who has employed you to steal my cat. Have you anything to say?'
'Yes,' I said.
'No, you haven't,' he said.
'I can explain everything,' I said.
'No, you can't,' he said.
And, by Jove, I suddenly realized I couldn't. It would have involved a long character analysis of Sir Watkyn Bassett, another of my Uncle Tom, a third of Stephanie (Stiffy) Byng, now Mrs Stinker Pinker, a fourth of Jeeves, and would have taken about two hours and a quarter, provided he listened attentively and didn't interrupt, which of course he would have done.
Matters, therefore, seemed to be at what you might call a deadlock, and the thought had suggested itself to me that my best plan would be to leave his presence and start running and keep on running till I reached the northern fringe of Scotland, when a noise like an explosion in a gas works broke in on my reverie, and I saw that he was holding the slim volume which Vanessa, the silly ass, had omitted to take off-stage with her.
'This book!' he yowled.
I did my best.
'Ah, yes,' I said, 'Reggie Sprockett's latest. I always keep up with his work. A brilliant young poet of whom the critics expect great things. These, in case you are interested, are whimsical essays. They are superb. Not only the style, but the thought in these little gems...'
My voice died away. I had been about to urge him to buy a copy, but I saw that he was not in the mood. He was staring at the opening page with its inscription, and I knew that words would be wasted, as the expression is.
He gave the hunting crop a twitch.
'My daughter has been here.'
'She did look in.'
'Ha!'
I knew what that 'Ha!' meant. It was short for 'I shall now thrash you within an inch of your life.' A moment later he used the longer version, as if in doubt as to whether he had made himself clear.
If you were to come to me and say 'Wooster, to settle a bet, which would you estimate is to be preferred, having your insides torn out by somebody's bare hands or being thrashed within an inch of your life?', I would find it difficult to decide. Both are things you'd rather have happen to another chap. But I think I would give my vote in favour of the last-named, always provided the other fellow was doing it in a small room, for there he would find that he had set himself a testing task. The dimensions of the sitting-room of Wee Nooke did not permit of a full swing. Cook had to confine himself to chip shots, which an agile person like myself had little difficulty in eluding.
I eluded them, therefore, with no great expenditure of physical effort, but I would be deceiving my public if I said that I was enjoying the episode. It offends one's pride when one has to leap like a lamb in Springtime at the bidding of an elderly little Gawd-help-us with whom it is impossible to reason. And it was plain that Cook in his present frame of mind wouldn't recognize reason if you served it up to him in an individual plate with watercress round it.
That, of course, was what prevented me fulfilling myself in the encounter, the fact that he was an elderly little Gawd-help-us. It was the combination of age and size that kept me from giving of my best. I might – indeed I would – have dotted in the eye a small young Gawd-help-us or a Gawd-help-us of riper years of the large economy size, but I couldn't possibly get tough with an undersized little squirt who would never see fifty-five again. The chivalry of the Woosters couldn't ever contemplate such an action.
I thought once or twice of adopting the policy which had occurred to me at the outset – viz. running up to the north of Scotland. I had often wondered, when I read about fellows getting horsewhipped on the steps of their club, why they didn't just go up the steps and into the club, knowing that the chap behind the horsewhip wasn't a member and wouldn't have a chance of getting past the hall porter.
But the catch was that running up to Scotland would mean turning my back, a fatal move. So we just carried on with our rhythmic dance till my guardian angel, who until now had just been sitting there, decided – and about time, too – to take a hand in the proceedings. As might have been expected in a cottage called Wee Nooke, there was a grandfather clock over against the wall, and he now arranged that Cook should bump into this and come a purler. And while he was still on the floor I acted with the true Wooster resource.
I have stated that the previous owner of Wee Nooke expressed herself as a rule in water colours, but on one occasion she had changed her act. Over the mantelpiece there hung a large oil painting depicting a bloke in a three-cornered hat and riding breeches in conference with a girl in a bonnet and what looked like muslin, and as it caught my eye I suddenly remembered Gussie Fink-Nottle and the portrait at Aunt Dahlia's place in Worcestershire.
Gussie – stop me if you've heard this before – while closely pursued by Spode, now Lord Sidcup, who, if memory serves me aright, wanted to break his neck, had taken refuge in my bedroom and was on the point of having his neck broken when he plucked a picture from the wall and brought it down on Spode's head. The head came through the canvas, and Spode, momentarily bewildered at finding himself wearing a portrait of one of Uncle Tom's ancestors round his neck like an Elizabethan ruff, gave me the opportunity of snatching a sheet from the bed and enveloping him in it, rendering him null and void, as the expression is.
I went through a precisely similar routine now, first applying the picture and then the tablecloth. After which I withdrew and went off to the Goose and Grasshopper to see Orlo. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 16 | Anybody not in possession of the facts would probably have been appalled at my rashness in placing myself within disembowelling range of Orlo Porter, feeling that I was tempting fate, and in about two ticks would be wishing I hadn't.
But I, strong in the knowledge that Orlo P. had been reduced to the level of a fifth-rate power, was able to approach the coming interview in a bumps-a-daisy spirit which might quite easily have led to my bursting into song.
Orlo, as I had predicted, was in the bar having a gin and ginger. He lowered the beaker as I drew near and regarded me in a squiggle-eyed manner like a fastidious luncher observing a caterpillar in his salad.
'Oh, it's you,' he said.
I conceded this, for he was right. No argument about it. Assured that he wasn't looking squiggle-eyed at the wrong chap, he proceeded.
'What do you want?'
'A word with you.'
'So you have come to gloat?'
'Certainly not, Porter,' I said, 'when you hear what I have to say, you will start skipping like the high hills, not that I've ever seen high hills skip, or low hills for that matter. Porter, what would you say if I told you all your troubles, all the little odds and ends that are bothering you now, would be over 'ere yonder sun had set?'
'It has set.'
'Oh, has it? I didn't notice.'
'And it is getting on for dinner time. So if you will kindly get the hell out of here –'
'Not till I have spoken.'
'Are you going to speak some more?'
'Lots more. Let us examine the position you and I are in calmly, and in a judicial spirit. Vanessa Cook has told me she will marry me, and you are probably looking on me as a snake in the grass. Well, let me tell you that any resemblance between me and a snake in the grass is purely coincidental. I couldn't issue a nolle prosequi, could I, when she said that? Of course not. But all the while I was right-hoing I felt I was behaving like a louse.'
'You are a louse.'
'No, that's where you make your error, Porter. I am a man of sensibility, and a man of sensibility does not marry a girl who's in love with somebody else. He gives her up.'
He finished his gin and ginger, and choked on it as he suddenly got the gist.
'You would give her up to me?'
'Absolutely.'
'But, Wooster, this is noble. I'm sorry I said you were a louse.'
'Quite all right. Sort of mistake anyone might make.'
'You remind me of Cyrano de Bergerac.'
'One has one's code.'
He had been all smiles – or pretty nearly all smiles – up to this point, but now melancholy marked him for her own again. He heaved a sigh, as if he had found a dead mouse at the bottom of his tankard.
'It would be useless for you to make this sacrifice, Wooster. Vanessa would never marry me.'
'Of course she would.'
'You weren't there when she broke the engagement.'
'My representative was. At least he was listening at the door.'
'Then you know the general run of the thing.'
'He gave me a full report.'
'And you say she still loves me?'
'Like a ton of bricks. Love cannot be extinguished by a potty little lovers' quarrel.'
'Potty little lovers' quarrel my left eyeball. She called me a lily-livered poltroon. And a sleekit timorous cowering beastie. One wonders where she picks up such expressions. And all because I refused to go to old Cook and demand my money. I'd been to him once and asked him in the most civil manner to cough up, and she wanted me to go again and this time to thump the table and generally throw my weight about.'
'You should, Orlo. That's just what you ought to do. What happened last time?'
'He flatly refused.'
'How flatly?'
'Very flatly. And it would be the same if I went again.'
He had given me the cue I wanted. I had been wondering how best to introduce what I had in mind. I smiled one of my subtle smiles, and he asked me what I was grinning about.
'Not if you select your time properly,' I said. 'What time was it you made your other try?'
'About five in the afternoon.'
'As I suspected. No wonder he gave you the bum's rush. Five in the afternoon is when a man's sunny disposition is down in the lowest brackets. Lunch wore off hours ago, and cocktails are not yet in sight. He isn't in the mood to oblige anyone about anything. Cook may be a hard-boiled egg, but dinner softens the hardest. Approach him when he is full to the brim, and you'll be surprised. Fellows at the Drones have told me that, applying after he had tucked into the evening meal, they have got substantial loans out of Oofy Prosser.'
'Who is Oofy Prosser?'
'The club millionaire, a man who by daylight watches his disbursement like a hawk. Cook is probably just the same.
Tails up, Porter. Get cracking. Be bloody, bold and resolute,' I said, remembering a gag from that play Macbeth, which I was mentioning some while back.
He was impressed, as who would not have been. His face lit up as if someone had pressed a button.
'Wooster,' he said, 'you're right. You have shown me the way. You have made my path straight. Thank you, Wooster, old man.'
'Not at all, Porter, old chap.'
'It's an extraordinary thing; anyone looking at you would write you off as a brainless nincompoop with about as much intelligence as a dead rabbit.'
'Thank you, Porter, old chap.'
'Not at all, Wooster, old man. Whereas all the time you have this amazing insight into human psychology.'
'I have hidden depths, would you say?'
'You bet you have, Wooster, old horse.'
And in another jiffy he was pressing a gin and ginger on me as if we had been bosom pals for years and the subject of my insides had never come up between us.
Returning to Wee Nooke some twenty minutes later after what had practically amounted to a love-feast, I had that jolly feeling you don't often get nowadays that God was in his Heaven and all right with the world, as the fellow said. I counted my blessings one by one and found the sum total most satisfactory. All was quiet on the Porter front, Billy Graham was even now returning the cat to its little circle at Eggesford Court, Porter and Vanessa Cook would soon be sweethearts again, and if my popularity with Pop Cook was at a low ebb, rendering unlikely any chance of a present from him next Christmas, that was a small flaw in the ointment. Or is it fly? I never can remember. Everything, in short, was just like Mother makes it, and it was a blithe B. Wooster who, hearing the telephone tootle, went to answer it with, as you might say, a song on his lips.
It was the aged relative, and the dullest ear could have spotted that she was in something of a doodah. For some moments after we had established connection she confined herself to gasps and gurgles such as might have proceeded from some strong swimmer in his agony.
'Hullo,' I said. 'Is something up?'
In the course of this narrative I have had occasion to mention several hacking laughs, but for sheer rasp and explosiveness the one the old ancestor emitted at these words topped the lot.
'Something up?' she boomed. 'You would say a thing like that when I'm nearly off my rocker. Has that cat been returned to store yet?'
'Billy Graham is in full control.'
'You mean he hasn't started yet?'
'Yes, and come back. But unfortunately the cat followed him. So he says. Anyway, he arrived here with it in close attendance, and he has now taken it off again. He's probably decanting the animal at this moment. But why the agitation?'
'I'll tell you why the agitation. If that cat is not back where it belongs immediately, if not sooner, ruin stares me in the eyeball and Tom is in for the worst attack of indigestion he has had since the time he ate all that lobster at his club. And only myself to blame.'
'Did you say you were to blame?'
'Yes. Why?'
'I only wondered if I had heard you correctly.'
I have become so accustomed to being blamed for everything that goes wrong that her words had touched me deeply. You don't often find an aunt taking the rap when she has a nephew at her disposal to shove the thing on to. It is pretty universally agreed that that is what nephews are for. My voice shook a bit as I applied for further details.
'What seems to be the trouble?' I asked.
Aunts as a class are seldom good listeners. She did not answer the question, but embarked on what sounded as if it was going to be a lecture on conditions in her native land.
'I'll tell you what's wrong with the England of today, Bertie. There are too many people around with scruples and high principles and all that sort of guff. You can't do the simplest thing without somebody jumping on the back of your neck because you've offended against his blasted code of ethics. You'd think a man like Jimmy Briscoe would be broadminded, but no. He couldn't have been more puff-faced if he'd been the Archbishop of Canterbury. You probably put the blame on his brother the vicar, but I don't agree. I can excuse him because it's his job to be finicky about things. But Jimmy! He made me feel as if I'd shot a fox or something. And it wasn't as if I was getting anything out of it. It was a pure act of kindness because I could see he had the interests of the organ at heart and was really worried about it. Dammit, St Francis of Assisi would have done the same and everybody would have said what a splendid chap he was and what a pity there weren't more like him, whereas the way Jimmy went on...'
I could see that if not checked with a firm hand this would continue for a goodish time.
'I'm sorry if I seem slow in the uptake, aged r.,' I said, 'but, if so, put it down to the fact that you appear to me to be delirious. Your words are like the crackling of thorns under the pot, as the fellow said. What on earth do you think you're talking about?'
'Haven't you been listening?'
'I have been listening, yes, but without coming within a mile and a quarter of getting the gist.'
'Oh, heavens, I might have known I would have to tell you in words of one syllable. Here's what's happened in simple language which even you can understand. I happened to be talking to the vicar, and he told me what a weight on his mind the church organ was, it being at its last gasp and no money to pay the vet., because he'd already touched Jimmy for quite a bit to mend the church roof, and if he tried to bite his ear again so soon after that, there would, he said, be hell to pay. So what the devil to do, he said, he didn't know.
'Well, you know me, Bertie. Being a woman with a heart like butter and always anxious to spread a little happiness as I pass by, I told him that if he wanted a bit of easy money, to put his shirt on Jimmy's Simla for the big race. And I told him about the cat, just to make it quite clear to him that he would be betting on a sure thing.'
'But –'
'Put a sock in it and listen. Can't you stop talking for half a second? I know what you were going to say – that you were returning the cat. But this was before you told me. So I went ahead, fearing nothing, just thinking of the happiness I was bringing into his life. I ought to have known that a clergyman was bound to have scruples, but it didn't occur to me at the time and to cut a long story short he went to Jimmy and spilled the beans, and Jimmy blew his top. "Take that cat back where it belongs," he said, and a lot of stuff about being shocked and horrified. Which wouldn't have mattered if he had confined himself to telling me what he thought of me, but he didn't. He said that if that cat wasn't back at Cook's within the hour he would scratch Simla's nomination. Yessir, he said Simla would not be among those present at the starting post, which meant that bang would go the vast sum I had put on his nose.'
'But –'
'Yes, I know you had told me you were sending the cat back, but how was I to be sure that, on thinking it over and realizing what a good thing you would be passing up, you hadn't changed your mind?'
I could see what she meant. A nephew with a lust for gold and lacking the Wooster play-the-game spirit might quite well have done as she said. No wonder she had been all of a doodah. It was a pleasure to set her mind at rest.
'It's quite all right, old ancestor,' I said. 'Billy Graham is already en route for the Cookeries, and ought to have got there by now.'
'Complete with cat?'
'To the last drop.'
'Not to worry?'
'Not as far as Simla getting scratched is concerned.'
'Well, that's a weight off my mind, though it's disappointing to feel that my bit of stuff isn't on a cert.'
'Teach you not to nobble horses.'
'Yes, there's that, I suppose.'
Some further talk followed, for an aunt who has got hold of a telephone receiver does not lightly relinquish it, but eventually she rang off, and I picked up Daffodil Days and gave it a casual glance.
Its contents proved even less fit for human consumption than I had expected. I turned away with rising nausea, and was thus enabled to get a good view of Herbert Graham, who was coming in from the kitchen.
The suddenness of his appearance, coupled with the fact that I had supposed him to be up at Eggesford Court, had made me bite my tongue, but in my concern I ignored the anguish.
'Good Lord!' I ejaculated, if that's the word.
'Sir?'
'Haven't you gone yet? You should have been there and back by this time.'
'Very true, sir, but something occurred which prevented me making the immediate start which I had intended.'
'What was that? Did they keep you a long time at the bank, counting your money?'
Bitter, yes, but I thought justified. Wasted, however, for he did not wince beneath my sarcasm.
'No, sir,' he replied. 'I bank in Bridmouth-on-Sea, and it is long past office hours. The occurrence to which I refer took place on these premises, in fact in this very room. I had gone to the kitchen to get the cat, which I had left there in its little basket, and I heard sounds proceeding from in here and assuming that you were not at home I went in to investigate, fearing that a burglar might have effected an entry, and there on the floor was a human form enveloped in a tablecloth. I raised this, and there underneath it was Mr Cook with a picture round his neck, vociferating something chronic.'
He paused, and I decided not to put him abreast. Never does to take fellows like Graham too fully into one's confidence.
'Wrapped in a tablecloth, was he?' I said nonchalantly. 'I suppose chaps like Cook are bound to get wrapped in tablecloths sooner or later.'
'The sight affected me profoundly.'
'I bet it did. Sights like that do give one a start. But you soon got over it, eh?'
'No, sir, I did not, and I'll tell you why I was what you might call stupefied. It was his language that did it chiefly. As I was saying, he expressed himself in a very violent manner, and I saw that it would be madness to proceed to Eggesford Court and possibly encounter him in this dangerous mood. I am a married man and have others to think of. So if you want that cat re-established in its former quarters, you'll have to get another operative to do it for you or else nip up to the Court and do it yourself.'
And while I looked at him with a wild surmise, silent upon a sitting-room carpet in Maiden Eggesford, Somerset, he withdrew.
I was still gazing at the spot where he had been and thinking how crazy I must have been to let Jeeves wander off, frittering away his time whooping it up with aunts, when I might have known I was bound to need his advice and moral support at any moment, and it was only after a bit that I realized that the telephone was ringing.
It was, as I had rather expected it would be, my late father's sister Dahlia, and it was made clear immediately that she had just been hearing from Billy Graham and getting the bad news. In a moving passage in which she referred to him as a double-crossing rat she said that he had formally refused to fulfil his sacred obligations.
'He had some extraordinary story about finding Cook in your cottage with a picture round his neck and a tablecloth over him and of being scared of going near him. Sounded like raving to me.'
'No, it was quite true.'
'You mean he really did have the picture round his neck and the tablecloth over him?'
'Yes.'
'How did he get that way?'
'We had a little argument, and that was how it worked out.'
She snorted in a rather febrile manner.
'Are you telling me that you are responsible for the man Graham's cold feet?'
'In a measure, yes. Let me give you a brief account of the episode,' I said, and did so. When I had finished, she spoke again, and her manner was almost calm.
'I might have known that if there was a chance of mucking up these very delicate negotiations, you would spring to the task. Well, as you are the cause of Graham walking out on us, you'll have to take his place.'
I was expecting this. Graham himself, it will be remembered, had made the same suggestion. I was resolved to discourage it from the outset.
'No!' I cried.
'Did you say No?'
'Yes, a thousand times no.'
'Scared, eh?'
'I am not ashamed to admit it.'
'You wouldn't be ashamed to admit practically anything. Where's your pride? Have you forgotten your illustrious ancestors? There was a Wooster at the time of the Crusades who would have won the Battle of Joppa singlehanded, if he hadn't fallen off his horse.'
'I daresay, but –'
'And the one in the Peninsular War. Wellington always used to say he was the best spy he ever had.'
'Quite possible. Nevertheless –'
'You don't want to show yourself worthy of those splendid fellows?'
'Not if it involves crossing Cook's path again.'
'Well, if you won't, you won't. Poor old Tom, how he will have to suffer. And talking of Tom, I had a letter from him this morning. It was all about the superb dinner Anatole had dished up on the previous night. He was absolutely lyrical. I must give it you to read. Apparently Anatole has struck one of these veins of perfection which French chefs do occasionally strike. Tom says in a postscript "How dear Bertie would have enjoyed this".'
I'm pretty shrewd, and I didn't miss the hideous unspoken threat behind her words. She was switching from the iron hand to the hand in the velvet glove, or rather the other way round, and letting me know without being crude about it that if I didn't allow myself to be bent to her will she would put sanctions on me and bar me from Anatole's cooking.
I made the great decision.
'Say no more, old flesh-and-blood,' I said. 'I will return the cat to store. And if while I am doing so Cook jumps out from behind a bush and tears me into a hundred fragments, what of it? It will be merely one more grave among the hills. What did you say?'
'Just "My Hero",' said the aged relative. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 17 | I was more to be pitied than censured, mind you, for quailing a bit in the circs. A touch of the wee sleekit cowering beastie is unavoidable when you're up against it as I was. I remember once when I was faced with the task of defying my Aunt Agatha and stoutly refusing to put up her son Thos at my flat for his mid-term holiday from his school and take him (a) to the British Museum (b) to the National Gallery and (c) to a play at the Old Vic by a bloke of the name of Chekhov, Jeeves, in whom I had confided the uneasiness I felt when contemplating the shape of things to come, told me my agitation was quite normal.
'Between the acting of a dreadful thing and the first motion,' he said, 'all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream. The genius and the mortal instruments are then in council and the state of man, like to a little kingdom, suffers the nature of an insurrection.'
I could have put it better myself, but I saw what he meant. At these times your feet are bound to get chilly, and there's nothing you can do about it.
I hid my tremors. A lifetime of getting socks on the jaw from the fist of Fate has made Bertram Wooster's face an inscrutable mask, and no one would have suspected that I was not as calm as an oyster on the half-shell as I started out for Eggesford Court with the cat. But actually, behind those granite features I was far from being tranquil. Indeed, you wouldn't have been wrong in saying that I was as jumpy as the above cat would have been if on hot bricks.
I never know when I'm telling a tale of peril and suspense whether to charge straight ahead or whether to pause from time to time and bung in what is called atmosphere. Some prefer the first way, others the second. For the benefit of the latter I will state that it was a nice evening with gentle breezes blowing and stars peeping out and the scent of growing things and all that, and then I can get down to the res.
It was dark when I reached the Cook premises, which suited me, for I had dark work to do. I halted the car about half-way up the drive and took the short cut across country. My best friends would have warned me that I was asking for trouble, and they would have been right. The visibility being poor, the terrain lumpy and the cat wriggling, it was a pretty safe bet that sooner or later I would come a purler. This I did as I approached the stables. I struck a wet patch, my feet slid from under me, the cat shot from my arms, falling to earth I know not where, and I found myself face down in what was unquestionably mud which had been there some time and had had a number of unpleasant substances thrown into it. I remember thinking as I extracted myself that it was lucky I wasn't on my way to mix in company, as that mud must have taken at least eighty per cent off my glamour. It was not Bertram Wooster, the natty boulevardier, who started to return to the car but one of the dregs of society who had got his clothes off a handy scarecrow and had slept in them.
I say 'started to return', for I had not gone more than a yard or two when something solid bumped against my leg and I became aware that I had been joined by a dog of formidable physique, none other than the one I had exchanged civilities with at Wee Nooke. I recognized him by his ears.
At our former meeting, overcome by having found what he instantly recognized as one of the right sort, he had made the welkin ring in his enthusiasm. I urged him in an undertone to preserve a tactful silence now, for you never knew what minions of Pop Cook might be abroad in the night, and my presence would be difficult to explain, but there was no reasoning with him. At Wee Nooke he had found the Wooster aroma roughly equivalent to Chanel Number Five, and it was as if he were trying now to assure me that he was not the dog to be put off a pal just because the pal's scent had deteriorated somewhat. It's the soul that counts, you could hear him saying to himself between barks.
Well, I appreciated the compliment, of course, but I was not my usual debonair self, for I feared the worst. Barking like this, I felt, could not go unheard unless Cook's outdoor staff had been recruited entirely from deaf adders. And I was right. Somewhere off-stage a voice shouted 'Hey', making it clear that Bertram, as so often before, was about to cop it amidships.
I gave the dog a reproachful look. Not much good in that light, of course. I was recalling the story they used to read to me in my childhood, the one about the fellow who had written a book and his dog Diamond chewed up the manuscript; the point being what a decent chap the fellow was, because all he said was 'Ah, Diamond, Diamond, you little know what you have done'. It ought to be 'thou little knowest' and 'what thou hast done', but I can't do the dialect.
I feature the story because I was equally restrained. 'I told you not to bark, you silly ass,' was my only comment, and as I spoke the shouter who had shouted 'Hey' came up.
He had not made a good impression on me from the start because his voice had reminded me of the Sergeant-Major who used to come twice a week to drill us at the private school where I won the Scripture Knowledge prize which I may have mentioned once or twice. The Sergeant-Major's voice had been like a vehicle full of tin cans going over gravel, and so was the Hey chap's. Some relation, perhaps.
It was pretty dark, of course, by now, but the visibility was good enough to enable me to see that there was something else I didn't like about this creature of the night – viz. that he was shoving a whacking great shotgun against my midriff. Taken all in all, a bloke to be conciliated with soft speech rather than struck in the mazzard. I tried speech, keeping it as soft as I could manage with my teeth chattering.
'Nice evening,' I said. 'I wonder if you could direct me to the village of Maiden Eggesford,' and would have gone on to explain that I had been for a country ramble and had lost my way, but I don't think he was listening, because all he did was bellow 'Enry', presumably addressing a colleague called Henry something, and a voice that might have been that of the Sergeant-Major's son replied 'Yus?'
'Cummere.'
'Where?'
'Here. Wanteher.'
'I'm having me supper.'
'Well, stop having it and cummere. I've cotched a chap after the horses.'
He had found the right talking-point. Henry was plainly a man who let nothing stand between him and his duty. When d. called he abandoned his eggs and bacon or whatever it was and hastened to answer the summons. In next to no time he was with us. The dog had disappeared. It was a dog, no doubt, with all sorts of interests and could give only a certain amount of its attention to each. Having sniffed my trouser legs and put his front paws on my chest, he felt that the time had come to seek other fields of endeavour.
Henry had a torch with him. He let it play on me.
'Coo,' he said. 'Is this him?'
'R.'
'Nasty slinking-looking bleeder.'
'R.'
'He don't half niff.'
'R.'
'Brings to mind that old song "It ain't all violets".'
'Lavender.'
'Violets, I always thought.'
'No, lavender.'
'Well, have it your own way. What are you going to do with him?'
'Take him to Mr Cook.'
The prospect of another meeting with Pop Cook under such conditions and after what had occurred between us was naturally distasteful to me, but there seemed little I could do about it, for at this moment Henry attached himself to my collar and we moved off, his associate prodding me in the back with his gun.
They took me to the house, where we were ill received by a butler annoyed at being interrupted while smoking an off-duty pipe. He further resented being confronted with what he called tramps who smelled like something gone wrong with the drains. I didn't know what I had fallen into, but it was becoming abundantly evident that it had been something rather special. The whole tone of the public's reaction to my society emphasized this.
The butler was very definite about everything. No, he said, they couldn't see Mr Cook. Were they under the impression, he asked, that Mr Cook was wearing a gas mask? In any case, he added, even if I had been smelling like new-mown hay, Mr Cook could not be disturbed, because he had a gentleman with him. Shut the fellow up in one of the stables why don't you, the butler said, and this was what my proposer and seconder decided to do.
I cannot too strongly recommend those of my readers who are thinking of getting shut up in stables to abandon the idea, for there is no percentage in it. It's stuffy, it's dark and there's nowhere to sit except the floor. Odd squeaking noises and sinister scratching noises making themselves heard from time to time, suggesting that rats are getting up an appetite before starting to chew you to the bone. After my escort had left me I shuffled about a good deal, with a view to finding some way of removing myself from as morale-testing a position as I had been in since I was so high, but the only method which occurred to me was to catch a rat and train it to gnaw through the door, but that would take time and I was anxious to get home and go to bed.
I had groped my way to the door as I was weighing the pros and cons of this rat sequence, and automatically, my mind on other things, I gave the handle a twiddle, more by way of something to do than because I expected anything to come of it, and shiver my timbers if the door didn't come open.
I thought at first that my guardian angel, who had been noticeably lethargic up to this point, had taken a stiff shot of vitamin something and had become the ball of fire he ought to have been right along, but reflection told me what must have happened. There had been confusion between the two principals, arising from inadequate planning. Each had thought the other had turned the key, with the result that it had remained unturned. It just showed how foolish it is to embark on any enterprise without first having a frank round-table conference conducted in an atmosphere of the utmost cordiality. It was difficult to think which of the two would kick himself harder when it was drawn to their attention that they had lost their Bertram.
But though I was now as free as the air, as you might say, I could see that it behooved me, if behooved is the word I want, to watch my step with the utmost vigilance. It would be too silly to run into Henry and the other bloke again and get bunged into durance-whatever-it's-called once more. I wanted complete freedom from both of them. Probably quite decent chaps when you got to know them, but definitely not for me.
Their sphere of influence was no doubt confined to the stable yard and neighbourhood, so it would be safe to leave by the route I had come by, but I shrank from doing that because I might meet that mud again. The thing to do was to roam about till I found the drive and go down it to where I had left the car. This I proceeded to do, and I had rounded the house and was crossing a lawn of sorts, when something gleamed in front of me and before I could stop myself I was stepping into a swimming-pool.
It was with mixed emotions that I rose to the surface. Surprise was one of them, for I hadn't thought that Cook was the sort of fellow to have a swimming-pool. Another was annoyance. I am not accustomed to bathing with all my clothes on, though there was that occasion at the Drones when Tuppy Glossop betted me I couldn't swing across the pool by the rings and I was reaching the last one when I found he had roped it back, causing me to fall into the fluid in correct evening costume.
But oddly enough, the emotion which stood out from the mixture was one of pleasure. Left to myself, I wouldn't have indulged in these aquatic sports, but now that I was in I was quite enjoying my dip. And there was the agreeable thought that this would do much to reduce the bouquet I had been giving out. What I had needed to enable me to rejoin the human herd without exciting adverse comment had been a good rinsing.
So I did not hurry to leave the pool, but floated there like a water-lily, or perhaps it would be better to say like a dead fish. And I had been doing so for some minutes, when there was that old familiar sound of barking in the night, and I gathered that my friend the dog had found another soul-mate.
I paused in my floating. I didn't like this. It suggested that Henry and his pal the man behind the gun were on the prowl again. What more likely than that they had got together and compared notes about locking the door and rushed to the stable and found me conspic. by my absence? I stiffened till my resemblance to a dead fish was even more striking than it had been, and I was still rigid when I heard the sound of galloping feet, as if somebody in a hurry were coming my way, and a human form splashed into the pool beside me.
That this had not been an intentional move on the human form's part was made clear by his opening remark on rising to the surface. It was the word 'Help!', and I had no difficulty in recognizing the voice of Orlo Porter.
'Help!' he repeated.
'Oh, hullo, Porter,' I said. 'Did you say "Help!"?'
'Yes.'
'Can't you swim?'
'No.'
'Then...' I was about to say 'Then surely it was rash to come bathing!', but I refrained, feeling that it would not be tactful. 'Then you could probably do with a helping hand,' I said.
He said he could, and I gave him one. We were at the deep end, and I hauled him into the shallow end, where he immediately became more at his ease. Spitting out perhaps a couple of pints of water, he thanked me – brokenly, as you might say – and I begged him not to mention it.
'Quite a surprise, meeting you like this,' I said. 'What are you doing in these parts, Porter?'
'Call me Orlo.'
'What are you doing in these parts, Orlo? Watching owls?'
'I came to see that blasted Cook, Wooster.'
'Call me Bertie.'
'I came to see that blasted Cook, Bertie. You remember your advice. Approach the old child of unmarried parents after he has had dinner, you said, and the more I thought about it, the sounder the idea seemed. You really have an extraordinary flair, Bertie. You read your fellow man like a book.'
'Oh, thanks. Just a matter of studying the psychology of the individual.'
'Unfortunately you can't judge someone like Cook by ordinary standards. Do you know why this is, Bertie?'
'No, Orlo. Why?'
'Because he's a hellhound, and there's no telling what a hellhound will do. Planning strategy is hopeless when you're dealing with hellhounds.'
'I gather that things did not go altogether as planned.'
'And how right you are, Bertie. The thing was a flop. It couldn't have been a worse flop if I had been trying to get money out of a combination of Scrooge and Gaspard the Miser.'
'Tell me, Orlo.'
'If you have a moment, Bertie.'
'All the time in the world, Orlo.'
'You don't want to hurry away anywhere?'
'No, I like it here.'
'So do I. Pleasantly cool, is it not. Well, then, I arrived and told the butler I wanted to see Mr Cook on a matter of importance, and the butler took me to the library, where I found Cook smoking a fat cigar. I was confident when I saw it that I had chosen my time right. The cigar was plainly an after-dinner cigar, and he was drinking brandy. There could be no doubt that the man was full to the back teeth. You are following me, Bertie?'
'I get the picture, Orlo.'
'There was another man there. Some sort of African explorer, I gathered.'
'Major Plank.'
'His presence was an embarrassment because he would insist on telling us all about the fertility rites of the natives of Bongo on the Congo, which, take it from me, are too improper for words, but he left us after a while and I was able to get down to business. And a lot of good it did me. Cook refused to part with a penny.'
I put a question which had been in my mind for some time. I don't say I had actually been worrying about Orlo's financial position, but it had seemed to me to need explaining.
'What exactly is the arrangement about your money? Surely Cook can't just hang on to it?'
'He can till I'm thirty.'
'How old are you?'
'Twenty-seven.'
'Then in another three years –'
For the first time he showed a flash of the old Orlo Porter who had been so anxious to tear out my insides with his bare hands. He didn't actually foam at the mouth, but I could see that he missed it by the closest of margins.
'But I don't want to wait another three years, dammit. Do you know what my insurance company pays me? A pittance. Barely enough to keep body and soul together on. And I am a man who likes nice things. I want to branch out.'
'A Mayfair flat?'
'Yes.'
'Champagne with every meal?'
'Exactly.'
'Rolls-Royces?'
'Those, too.'
'Leaving something over, of course, to slip to the hard-up proletariat? You'd like them to have what you don't need.'
'There won't be anything I don't need.'
It was a little difficult to know what to say. I had never talked things over with a Communist before, and it came as something of a shock to find that he wasn't so fond of the hard-up proletariat as I had supposed. I thought of advising him not to let the boys at the Kremlin hear him expressing such views, but decided that it was none of my business. I changed the subject.
'By the way, Orlo,' I said, 'what brought you here?'
'Haven't you been listening? I came to see Cook.'
'I mean how did you come to fall into the pool?'
'I didn't know it was there.'
'You seemed to be running very fast. What was your hurry?'
'I was escaping from a dog which was attacking me.'
'A large dog with stand-up ears?'
'Yes. You know it?'
'We've met. But it wasn't attacking you.'
'It sprang on me.'
'In a purely friendly spirit. It springs on everyone. It's its way of being matey.'
He drew a long breath of relief. It would have been longer, had he not lost his footing and disappeared into the depths. I reached about for him and hauled him up, and he thanked me.
'A pleasure,' I said.
'You have taken a weight off my mind, Bertie. I was wondering how I could get back in safety to the inn.'
'I'll give you a lift in my car.'
'No, thanks. Now that you have explained the purity of that dog's motives I'd rather walk. I don't want to catch cold. By the way, Bertie, there's just one point I'd like you to clarify for me. What are you doing here?'
'Just strolling around.'
'It struck me as odd that you should have been in the pool.'
'Oh, no. Just cooling off, Orlo, just cooling off.'
'I see. Well, good night, Bertie.'
'Good night, Orlo.'
'I can rely on the accuracy of your information about the dog?'
'Completely, Orlo. His life is gentle, and the elements mixed in him just right,' I said, remembering a gag of Jeeves's.
It was with water dripping from my person in all directions but with a song in my heart, as the expression is, that some minutes later I climbed from the pool and started to where I had left the car. In addition to having a song in it my heart ought of course to have been bleeding for Orlo, for I realized how long it was going to take him to get all those nice things we had been talking about, but the ecstasy of having parted from the cat left little room for sympathy for other people's troubles. My concern for Orlo was, I regret to say, about equal to his for the hard-up proletariat.
All was quiet on the Cook front. No sign of Henry and his pal. The dog after fraternizing with Orlo had apparently curled up somewhere and was getting his eight hours.
I drove on. The song in my heart rose to fortissimo as I got out of the car at the door of Wee Nooke, only to die away in a gurgle as something soft and furry brushed against my leg and looking down I saw the familiar form of the cat. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 18 | I should have to check with Jeeves, but I think the word to describe the way I slept that night is 'fitfully'. I turned and twisted like an adagio dancer, and no wonder, for what I have heard Jeeves call 'the fell clutch of circumstance' which was clutching me was not the ordinary fell clutch which can be wriggled out of by some simple ruse such as going on a voyage round the world and not showing up again till things have blown over.
I had the option, of course, of disassociating myself entirely from the cat sequence and refusing to have anything more to do with the ruddy animal, but this would mean Colonel Briscoe scratching Simla's nomination, which would mean that a loved aunt would lose a packet and have to touch Uncle Tom to make up the deficit, which would mean upsetting the latter's gastric juices for one didn't know how long, which would mean him pushing his plate away untasted night after night, which would mean Anatole, temperamental like all geniuses, getting deeply offended and handing in his resignation. Ruin, desolation and despair all round, in short.
Manifestly, I think it's manifestly, the chivalry of the Woosters could not permit all that to happen. Somehow, whatever the perils involved, the cat had to be decanted somewhere where it could find its way back to its GHQ. But who was to do the decanting? Billy Graham had made it plain that no purse of gold, however substantial, could persuade him to brave the horrors of Eggesford Court, that sinister house. Jeeves had formally declared himself a non-starter. And Aunt Dahlia was disqualified by her unfortunate inability to move from spot to spot without having twigs snap beneath her feet.
This put the issue squarely up to Bertram. And no chance for him to do a nolle prosequi, because if he did bang went his hopes, for quite a time at least, of enjoying Anatole's cooking.
It was consequently in sombre mood that I went across to the Goose and Grasshopper for breakfast. I do not as a rule take the morning meal at six-thirty, but I had been awake since four, and the pangs of hunger could be resisted no longer.
If there was one thing I had taken for granted, it was that I would be breakfasting alone. My surprise, therefore, at finding Orlo in the dining-room, tucking into eggs and bacon, was considerable. I couldn't imagine how he came to be in circulation at such an hour. Bird-watchers, of course, are irregular in their habits, but even if he had an appointment with a Clarkson's warbler you would have expected him to have made it for much nearer lunch.
'Oh, hullo, Bertie,' he said. 'Glad to see you.'
'You're up early, Orlo.'
'A little before my usual time. I don't want to keep Vanessa waiting.'
'You've asked her to breakfast?'
'No, she will have had breakfast. Our date was for half-past seven. She may, of course, be late. It depends on how soon she can find the key of the garage.'
'Why does she want the key of the garage?'
'To get the Bentley.'
'Why does she want the Bentley?'
'My dear Bertie, we've got to elope in something.'
'Elope?'
'I ought to have explained that earlier. Yes, we're eloping, and thank goodness we've got a fine day for it. Ah, here are your eggs. You'll enjoy them. They're very good at the Goose and Grasshopper. Come, no doubt, from contented hens.'
On seating myself at the table I had ordered eggs, and, as he justly observed, they were excellent. But I dug into them listlessly. I was too bewildered to give them the detached thought they deserved.
'Do you mean to say,' I said, 'that you and Vanessa are e-lop-ing?'
'The only sober sensible course to pursue. This comes as a surprise?'
'You could knock me down with a ham sandwich.'
'What seems to be puzzling you?'
'I thought you weren't on speaking terms.'
His response was a hyenaesque guffaw. It was plain that he was feeling his oats to no little extent – quite naturally, of course, Vanessa being the tree on which the fruit of his life hung, as I have heard it described. It made me reflect on the extraordinary extent to which tastes can differ. I, as I have shown, though momentarily attracted by her radiant beauty, had frozen in every limb at the prospect of linking my lot with hers, whereas he was obviously all for it. In just the same way my Uncle Tom dances round in circles if he can get hold at enormous expense of a silver oviform chocolate pot of the Queen Anne period which I wouldn't be seen in public with. Curious.
He continued to guffaw.
'You aren't up to the minute with your society gossip, Bertie. That's all a thing of the past. Admittedly relations were at one time strained and harsh words spoken about the colour of my liver, but we had a complete reconciliation last night.'
'Oh, you met her last night?'
'Shortly after I left you. She was taking a stroll preparatory to going to bed and bedewing her pillow with salt tears.'
'Why should she do that?'
'Because she thought she was going to marry you.'
'I see. The fate that is worse than death, you might say.'
'Exactly.'
'Sorry she was troubled.'
'Quite all right. She soon got over it when I told her I had been seeing Cook and demanding my money. When she heard that I had several times thumped the table, her remorse for having called me a sleekit cowering beastie was pitiful. She compared me with heroes of old Greek legend, to their disadvantage, and, to cut a long story short, flung herself into my arms.'
'She must have got wet.'
'Very wet. But she didn't mind that. An emotional girl wouldn't.'
'I suppose not.'
'We then decided to elope. You may be wondering what we're going to live on, but with my salary and a bit of money she has from the will of an aunt we shall be all right. So it was arranged that she should have an early breakfast, go to the garage, pinch the Bentley and put the other cars out of action, leaving Cook for pursuing purposes only the gardener's Ford.'
'That ought to fix him.'
'I think so. It is an excellent car for its purpose, but scarcely adapted to chasing daughters across country. Cook will never catch up with us.'
'Though I don't see what he could do, even if he did catch up with you.'
'You don't? What about that hunting crop of his?'
'Ah, yes, I see what you mean.'
I don't know if he would have developed this theme, but before he could speak there came from the street a musical tooting.
'There she is,' he said, and went out.
So did I. I had no wish to meet Vanessa. I slid out of the back door and returned to Wee Nooke. And I had picked up By Order Of The Czar and was hoping to discover what it was that he had ordered, my bet being that a lot of characters with names ending in 'sky' would be off to Siberia before they knew what had hit them, when who should enter hurriedly but Orlo.
He had an envelope in his hand.
'Oh, there you are, Bertie,' he said. 'I can only stop a minute. Vanessa's out there in the car.'
'Ask her to come in.'
'She won't come in. She says it would be too painful for you.'
'What would?'
'Meeting her, you ass. Gazing on her when you knew she is another's.'
'Oh, I see.'
'No sense in giving yourself a lot of agony if you don't have to.'
'Quite.'
'I wouldn't have disturbed you, only I wanted to give you this letter. It's a note I've written to Cook in place of the one Vanessa wrote last night.'
'Oh, she wrote him a note?'
'Yes.'
'To be pinned to her pincushion?'
'That was the idea. But she dropped it somewhere and couldn't be bothered to hunt around for it. So I thought I had better send him a line. If you're running away with a man's daughter, it's only civil to let him know. And I would put the facts before him much better than she would. Girls are apt not to stick to the point when writing letters. With the best intentions in the world they ramble and embroider. A University-trained man like myself who contributes to the New Statesman does not fall into this blunder. He is concise. He is lucid.'
'I didn't know you wrote for the New Statesman.'
'Occasional letters to the editor. And I rarely fail to enter for the weekly competitions.'
'Absorbing work.'
'Very.'
'I'm a writer of sorts myself. When my Aunt Dahlia was running that paper of hers, Milady's Boudoir, I did a piece for it on What The Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing.'
'Did you indeed? Next time we meet you must tell me all about it. Can't stop now. Vanessa's waiting and,' he added as the tooting of a horn broke the morning stillness, 'getting impatient. Here's the letter.'
'You want me to take it to Cook?'
'What do you think I want you to do with it? Get it framed?'
And so saying he legged it like a nymph surprised while bathing, and I picked up my By Order Of The Czar.
As I did so I was thinking bitterly that I wished the general public would stop regarding me as an uncomplaining Hey-You on whom all the unpleasant jobs could be shovelled off. Whenever something sticky was afoot and action had to be taken the cry was sure to go up, 'Let Wooster do it'. I have already touched on my Aunt Agatha's tendency to unload her foul son Thos on me at all seasons. My Aunt Dahlia had blotted the sunshine from my life in the matter of the cat. And here was Orlo Porter coolly telling me to take the letter to Cook, as if entering Cook's presence in his present difficult mood wasn't much the same as joining Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, of whom I had read when I won that Scripture Knowledge prize at my private school, on their way to the burning fiery furnace. What, I asked myself, was to be done?
It was a dilemma which might well have baffled a lesser man, but the whole point about the Woosters is that they are not lesser men. I don't suppose it was more than three-quarters of an hour before the solution flashed on me – viz. to write Cook's name and address on the envelope, stick a stamp on it and post it. Having decided to do this, I returned to my reading.
But everything seemed to conspire today to prevent me making any real progress with By Order Of The Czar. Scarcely had I perused a paragraph when the door burst open and I found that I was seeing Cook after all. He was standing on the threshold looking like the Demon King in a pantomime.
With him was Major Plank. |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 19 | I have always rather prided myself on being a good host, putting visitors at their ease with debonair smiles and courteous wisecracks, but I am compelled to admit that at the sight of these two I didn't come within a mile of doing so, and the best I could do in the way of wisecracks was a hoarse cry like that of a Pekingese with laryngitis. It was left to Plank to get the conversation going.
'We're in luck, Cook,' he said. 'They haven't started yet. Because if they had,' he added, reasoning closely, 'the bounder wouldn't be here, would he?'
'You're right,' said Cook. Then, addressing me, 'Where is my daughter, you scoundrel?'
'Yes, where is she, rat?' said Plank, and I suddenly came over all calm. From being a Pekingese with throat trouble I turned in a flash into one of those fellows in historical novels who flick a speck of dust from the irreproachable mechlin lace at their wrists preparatory to making the bad guys feel like pieces of cheese. Because with my quick intelligence I had spotted that the parties of the second part had got all muddled up and that I was in a position to score off them as few parties of the second part had ever been scored off.
'Fill me in on two points, Messrs Plank and Cook, if you will be so good,' I said, '(a)Why are you taking up space in my cottage which I require for other purposes, and (b) What the hell are you talking about? What is all this song and dance about daughters?'
'Trying to brazen it out,' said Plank. 'I told you he would. He reminds me of a man I knew in East Africa, who always tried to brazen things out. If you caught him with his fingers in your cigar box, he would say he was just tidying the cigars. Fellow named Abercrombie-Smith, eventually eaten by a crocodile on the Lower Zambezi. But even he had to give up when confronted with overwhelming evidence. Confront this blighter with the overwhelming evidence, Cook.'
'I will,' said Cook, producing an envelope from his pocket. 'I have here a letter from my daughter. Signed "Vanessa".'
'A very important point,' said Plank.
'I will read it to you. "Dear Father. I am going away with the man I love."'
'Let's see him wriggle out of that,' said Plank.
'Yes,' said Cook. 'What have you to say?'
'Merely this,' I riposted. I was thinking how mistaken Orlo had been in asserting that girls rambled when writing letters. Anything more lucid and concise than this one I had never come across. Possibly, I felt, Vanessa, too, was a contributor to the New Statesman. 'Cook,' I said, 'you are labouring under a what-d'you-call-it.'
'See!' said Plank. 'Didn't I say he would try to brazen it out?'
'That letter does not refer to me.'
'Are you denying that you are the man my daughter loves?'
'That's just what I am denying.'
'In spite of the fact that she is always in and out of this beastly cottage and is probably at this moment hiding under the bed in the spare room,' said Plank, continuing to shove his oar in in the most unnecessary manner. These African explorers have no tact, no reticence.
'May I explain,' I said. 'The chap you're looking for is Orlo Porter. They fell for each other when she was in London and love has been burgeoning ever since, if burgeoning means what I think it means, until they felt they could bear being separated no longer. So she pinched your car and they've driven off together to the registrar's.'
It didn't go well. Cook said I was lying, and Plank said of course I was, adding that the more he saw of me the more I reminded him of Abercrombie-Smith, who, he said, would undoubtedly have done a long stretch in chokey if the crocodile hadn't taken things into its own hands.
I should have mentioned that in the course of these exchanges Cook's complexion had been steadily deepening. It now looked like a Drone Club tie, which is a rich purple. There was talk at one time of having it crimson with white spots, but the supporters of that view were outvoted.
'How dare you have the insolence to suppose that I am fool enough to believe this story of my daughter being in love with Orlo Porter?' he thundered. 'As if any girl in her senses would love Orlo Porter.'
'Ridiculous,' said Plank.
'Vanessa would turn from him in disgust.'
'On her heel,' said Plank.
'What she can see in you I cannot imagine.'
'Nor can I,' said Plank. 'He's got a beard like one of those Victorian novelists. Revolting spectacle.'
It was true that I hadn't shaved this morning, but this was going too far. I don't mind criticism, but I will not endure vulgar abuse.
'Pfui,' I said. It is an expression I don't often use, but Nero Wolfe is always saying it with excellent results, and it seemed to fit in rather well here. 'Enough of this back-chat. Read this,' I said, handing Cook Orlo's letter.
I must say his reception of what Plank would have called the overwhelming evidence was all that could be desired. His jaw fell. He snorted. His face crumpled up like a sheet of carbon paper.
'Good God!' he gurgled.
'What is it?' asked Plank. 'What's the matter?'
'This is from Porter, saying that he has eloped with Vanessa.'
'Probably a forgery.'
'No. Porter's writing is unmistakable...' He choked. 'Mr Wooster –'
'Don't call him Mister Wooster as if he were a respectable member of society,' said Plank. 'He's a desperate criminal who once came within an ace of stinging me for five pounds. He is known to the police as Alpine Joe. Address him as that. Wooster is only a pen name.'
Cook did not seem to have listened – and I didn't blame him.
'Mr Wooster, I owe you an apology.'
I decided to temper justice with m. No sense in grinding the poor old buster beneath the iron heel. True, he had been extremely offensive, but to a man who has lost his daughter and his cat within a day or two of each other much must be excused.
'Don't give it another thought, my dear fellow,' I said. 'We all make mistakes. I forgive you freely. If this little misunderstanding has taught you not to speak till you are sure of your facts, it will have been time well spent.'
I had paused, speculating as to whether I wasn't being a bit too patronizing, when somebody said 'Miaow' in a low voice, and looking down I saw that the cat had strolled in. And if ever a cat chose the wrong moment for getting the party spirit and wanting to mix with the boys, this cat was that cat. I looked at it with a wild surmise, as silent as those bimbos on the peak in Darien. With both hands pressed to the top of my head to prevent it taking to itself the wings of a dove and soaring to the ceiling, I was asking myself what the harvest would be.
I was speedily informed on this point.
'Ha!' said Cook, scooping up the animal and pressing it to his bosom. He seemed to have lost all interest in eloping daughters.
'I told you it must have been Alpine Joe who was the kidnapper,' said Plank. 'That was why he was hanging about the stables that day. He was waiting his chance.'
'Biding his time.'
'And he hasn't a word to say for himself.'
He was right. I was unable to utter. I couldn't clear myself by exposing the aged relative at the bar of world opinion. I couldn't make them believe that I was going to return the cat. You might have described me as being trapped in the net of fate if you had happened to think of the expression, and when that happens to you, it is no use saying anything. Ask the boys in Dartmoor or Pentonville. I could only trust that joy at recovering his lost one might soften Cook's heart and make him let me off lightly.
Not a hope.
'I shall insist on an exemplary sentence,' he said.
'And meanwhile,' said Plank in that offensively officious way of his, 'shall I be hitting him on the head with my stick? The Zulu knob-kerrie would be better, but I left it up at the house.'
'I was going to ask you to go for a policeman.'
'While you do what?'
'While I take the cat back to Potato Chip.'
'Suppose while we're both gone he does a bunk?'
'You have a point there.'
'When anyone is caught stealing in Bongo on the Congo, they tie him down on an ant-hill until they can get hold of the walla-walla, as judges are called in the native dialect. Makes it awkward for the accused if he isn't fond of ants and the walla-walla is away for the week-end, but into each life some rain must fall and he ought to have thought of that before he started pinching things. We're short of ants, of course, but we can tie him to the sofa. It only means pulling down a couple of curtain cords.'
'Then by all means let us do as you suggest.'
'Better gag him. We don't want him yelling for help.'
'My dear Plank, you think of everything.'
I am a great reader of novels of suspense, and I had often wondered how the heroes of them felt when the heavy tied them up, as he generally did about half-way through. I was now in a position to get a rough idea, but of course only a rough one, for they were pretty nearly always attached to a barrel of gunpowder with a lighted candle on top of it, which must have made the whole thing considerably more poignant.
I had been spared this what you might call added attraction, but even so I was far from being in sunny mood. I think it was the gag which contributed most to the lowering of my spirits. Plank had inserted his tobacco pouch between my upper and lower teeth, and it tasted far too strongly of African explorer to be agreeable. It was a great relief when I heard a footstep and realized that Jeeves had returned from revelling with Mrs P. B. Pigott of Balmoral, Mafeking Road.
'Good morning, sir,' he said.
He expressed no surprise at seeing me tied to a sofa with curtain cords, just as he would have e. no s. if he had seen me being eaten by a crocodile like the late Abercrombie-Smith, though in the latter case he might have heaved a regretful sigh.
Assuming that I would prefer to be without them, he removed the gag and unfastened my bonds.
'Have you breakfasted, sir?' he asked. I told him I had.
'Perhaps some coffee, sir?'
'A great idea. And make it strong,' I said, hoping that it would wash the taste of Plank's tobacco pouch away. 'And when you return, I shall a tale unfold which will make you jump as if you'd sat on a fretful porpentine.'
I was quite wrong, of course. I doubt if he would do much more than raise an eyebrow if, when entering his pantry, he found one of those peculiar fauna from the Book of Revelations in the sink. When he returned with the steaming pot and I unfolded my tale, he listened attentively, but gave no indication that he recognized that what he was listening to was front page stuff. Only when I told him of the clicking of Orlo and Vanessa, releasing me from my honourable obligations to the latter, did a flicker of interest disturb his frozen features. I think he might have unbent to the extent of offering me respectful congratulations, had not Plank come bounding in.
He was alone. I could have told him it was hopeless to try to get hold of the Maiden Eggesford Police Force at that time of day. There was only one of it and in the morning he does his rounds on his bicycle.
Seeing Jeeves, he registered astonishment.
'Inspector Witherspoon!' he cried. 'Amazing how you Scotland Yard fellows always get your man. I suppose you've been on Alpine Joe's trail for weeks like a stoat and a rabbit. Little did he know that Inspector Witherspoon, the man who never sleeps, was watching his every move. Well, you couldn't have come up with him at a better moment, for in addition to whatever the police want him for he has stolen a valuable cat belonging to my friend Cook. We caught him redhanded, or as redhanded as it is possible to be when stealing cats. But I'm surprised that you should have untied him from the sofa. I always thought the one thing the police were fussy about was the necessity of leaving everything untouched.'
I must say I was what is called at a loss of words, but luckily Jeeves had plenty.
'I fail to understand you,' he said, his voice and manner so chilly that Plank must have been wishing he was wearing his winter woollies. 'And may I ask why you address me as Inspector Witherspoon? I am not Inspector Witherspoon.'
Plank clicked his tongue impatiently.
'Of course you are,' he said. 'I remember you distinctly. You'll be telling me next that you didn't arrest this man at my place in Gloucestershire for trying to obtain five pounds from me by false pretences.'
Jeeves had no irreproachable mechlin lace at his wrist, or he would unquestionably have flicked a speck of dust off it. He increased the coldness of his manner.
'You are mistaken in every respect,' he said. 'Mr Wooster has ample means. It seems scarcely likely, therefore, that he would have attempted to obtain a mere five pounds from you. I can speak with authority as to Mr Wooster's financial standing, for I am his solicitor and prepare his annual income tax return.'
'So there you are, Plank,' I said. 'It must be obvious to every thinking man that you have been having hallucinations, possibly the result of getting a touch of the sun while making a pest of yourself to the natives of Equatorial Africa. If I were you, I'd pop straight back to E. J. Murgatroyd and have him give you something for it. You don't want that sort of thing to spread. You'll look silly if it goes too far and we have to bury you before sundown.'
Plank was plainly shaken. He could not pale beneath his tan because he had so much tan that it was impossible to pale beneath it. I'm not sure I have put that exactly right. What I mean is that he may have paled, but you couldn't see it because of his sunburn.
But he was looking very thoughtful, and I knew what was passing in his mind. He was wondering how he was going to explain to Cook, whom by tying people to sofas he had rendered liable for heavy damages for assault and battery and all sorts of things.
These African explorers think quick. It took him about five seconds flat to decide not to stay and explain to Cook. Then he was out of the room in a flash, his destination presumably Bongo on the Congo or somewhere similar where the arm of the law couldn't touch him. I don't suppose he had shown a brisker turn of speed since the last time he had thought the natives seemed friendly and had decided to stay the night, only to have them come after him with assegais.
My first move after he had left us was, of course, to pay a marked tribute to Jeeves for his services and co-operation. This done, we struck the more social note.
'Did you have a good time last night, Jeeves?'
'Extremely enjoyable, thank you, sir.'
'How was your aunt?'
'At first somewhat dispirited.'
'Why was that?'
'She had lost her cat, sir. On leaving for her holiday she placed it in the charge of a friend, and it had strayed.'
I gasped. A sudden idea had struck me. We Woosters are like that. We are always getting struck by sudden ideas.
'Jeeves! Could it be... Do you think it's possible...?'
'Yes, sir. She described the animal to me in minute detail, and there can be no doubt that it is the one now in residence at Eggesford Court.'
I danced a carefree dance step. I know a happy ending when I see one.
'Then we've got Cook cold!'
'So it would seem, sir.'
'We go to him and tell him he can carry on plus cat till the race is over, paying, of course, a suitable sum to your aunt. Lend-lease, isn't it called?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And in addition we make it a proviso... It is proviso?'
'Yes, sir.'
'That he gives Orlo Porter his money. I'd like to see Orlo fixed up. He can't refuse, because he must have the cat, and if he tries any nolle prosequi as regards Orlo we slap an assault and battery suit on him. Am I right, Jeeves?'
'Indubitably, sir.'
'And another thing. I have thought for some time that the hectic rush and swirl of life in Maiden Eggesford can scarcely be what E. Jimpson Murgatroyd had in mind when he sent me to the country to get a complete rest. What I need is something quieter, more peaceful, as it might be in New York. And if I am mugged, what of it? It is probably all right getting mugged, when you are used to it. Do you agree, Jeeves?'
'Yes, sir.'
'And you are in favour of bearding Pop Cook?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Then let's go. My car is outside. Next stop, Eggesford Court.' |
(Jeeves 15) Aunts Aren't Gentlemen | P. G. Wodehouse | [
"humor"
] | Chapter 20 | It was about a week after we had fetched up in New York that coming to the breakfast table one morning, rejoicing in my youth if I remember rightly, I found a letter with an English stamp lying by my plate. Not recognizing the writing, I pushed it aside, intending to get at it later after I had fortified myself with a square meal. I generally do this with the letters I get at breakfast time, because if they're stinkers and you read them on an empty stomach, you start your day all wrong. And in these disturbed times you don't often find people writing anything but stinkers.
Some half-hour later, refreshed and strengthened, I opened the envelope, and no wonder the writing had seemed unfamiliar, for it was from Uncle Tom, and he hadn't written to me since I was at my private school, when, to do him credit, he had always enclosed a postal order for five or ten bob.
He hauled up his slacks thus:
Dear Bertie.
You will doubtless be surprised at hearing from me. I am writing for your aunt, who has met with an unfortunate accident and is compelled to wear her arm in a sling. This occurred during the concluding days of her visit to some friends of hers in Somerset named Briscoe. If I understand her rightly, a party was in progress to celebrate the victory of Colonel Briscoe's horse Simla in an important race, and a cork, extracted from a bottle of champagne, struck her so sharply on the tip of the nose that she lost her balance and fell, injuring her wrist.
Then came three pages about the weather, the income tax (which he dislikes) and the recent purchases he had made for his collection of old silver, and finally a postscript:
PS Your aunt asks me to enclose this newspaper clipping.
I couldn't find any newspaper clipping, and I supposed he must have forgotten to enclose it. Then I saw it lying on the floor.
I picked it up. It was from the Bridmouth Argus, with which is incorporated the Somerset Farmer and the South Country Intelligencer, the organ, if you remember, whose dramatic critic gave the old ancestor such a rave notice when she sang 'Every Nice Girl Loves A Sailor' in her sailor suit at the Maiden Eggesford village concert.
It ran as follows:
JUBILEE STAKES SENSATION
JUDGES' DECISION
Yesterday the Judges, Major Welsh, Admiral Sharpe and Sir Everard Boot, after prolonged consideration, gave their decision in the Jubilee Stakes incident which has led to so much controversy in Bridmouth-on-Sea sporting circles. The race was awarded to Colonel Briscoe's Simla. Bets will accordingly be settled in accordance with this fiat. Rumour whispers that large sums will change hands.
Here I paused, for letter and clipping had given me much food for thought.
Naturally it was with the deepest concern that I pictured the tragic scene of Aunt Dahlia and the champagne cork. Something similar happened to me once during some rout or revelry at the Drones, and I can testify that it calls for all that one has of fortitude. But against this must be set the fact that she had won a substantial chunk of money and would not be faced with the awful necessity of getting into Uncle Tom's ribs in order to keep the budget balanced.
But this aspect of the matter ceased to enchain my interest. What I wanted was to probe to the heart of the mystery that had presented itself. Apparently Cook's Potato Chip had finished first but had been disqualified. Why? Bumping? That's usually what you get disqualified for.
I read on.
The facts will of course be fresh in the minds of our readers. Rounding into the straight, Simla and his rival were neck and neck, far ahead of the field, and it was plain that one of the two must be the ultimate winner. Nearing the finish, Simla took the lead and was a full length ahead, when a cat with black and white markings suddenly ran on to the course, causing him to shy and unseat his jockey.
It was then discovered that the cat was the property of Mr Cook and had actually been brought to the course in his horse's horse box. It was this that decided the judges, who, as we say, yesterday awarded the race to Colonel Briscoe's entrant. Sympathy has been expressed for Mr Cook.
Not by me, I hasten to say. I felt it served the old blighter jolly well right. He ought to have known that you can't go about the place for years making a hellhound of yourself without eventually paying the price. Remember what the fellow said about the mills of the gods.
I was in philosophical mood as I smoked the after-breakfast cigarette. Jeeves came in to clear away the debris, and I told him the news.
'Simla won, Jeeves.'
'Indeed, sir? That is most gratifying.'
'And Aunt Dahlia got hit on the tip of the nose with a champagne cork.'
'Sir?'
'At the subsequent celebrations at the Briscoe home.'
'Ah, yes, sir. A painful experience, but no doubt satisfaction at her financial gains would enable Mrs Travers to bear it with fortitude. Was the tone of her communication cheerful?'
'The letter wasn't from her, it was from Uncle Tom. He enclosed this.'
I handed him the clipping, and I could see how deeply it interested him. One of his eyebrows rose at least a sixteenth of an inch.
'Dramatic, Jeeves.'
'Exceedingly, sir. But I am not sure that I altogether agree with the verdict of the judges.'
'You don't?'
'I should have been inclined to regard the episode as an Act of God.'
'Well, thank goodness the decision wasn't up to you. The imagination boggles at the thought of how Aunt Dahlia would have reacted if it had gone the other way. One pictures her putting hedgehogs in Major Welsh's bed and getting fourteen days without the option for pouring buckets of water out of windows on the heads of Admiral Sharpe and Sir Everard Boot. I should have got nervous prostration in the first couple of days. And it was difficult enough to avoid nervous prostration in Maiden Eggesford as it was, Jeeves,' I said, my philosophical mood now buzzing along on all twelve cylinders. 'Do you ever brood on life?'
'Occasionally, sir, when at leisure.'
'What do you make of it? Pretty odd in spots, don't you think?'
'It might be so described, sir.'
'This business of such-and-such seeming to be so-and-so, when it really isn't so-and-so at all. You follow me?'
'Not entirely, sir.'
'Well, take a simple instance. At first sight Maiden Eggesford had all the indications of being a haven of peace. You agreed with me?'
'Yes, sir.'
'As calm and quiet as you could wish, with honeysuckle-covered cottages and apple-cheeked villagers wherever you looked. Then it tore off its whiskers and revealed itself as an inferno. To obtain calm and quiet we had to come to New York, and there we got it in full measure. Life saunters along on an even keel. Nothing happens. Have we been mugged?'
'No, sir.'
'Or shot by youths?'
'No, sir.'
'No, sir, is right. We are tranquil. And I'll tell you why. There are no aunts here. And in particular we are three thousand miles away from Mrs Dahlia Travers of Brinkley Manor, Market Snodsbury, Worcestershire. Don't get me wrong, Jeeves, I love the old flesh-and-blood. In fact I revere her. Nobody can say she isn't good company. But her moral code is lax. She cannot distinguish between what is according to Hoyle and what is not according to Hoyle. If she wants to do anything, she doesn't ask herself "Would Emily Post approve of this?", she goes ahead and does it, as she did in this matter of the cat. Do you know what is the trouble with aunts as a class?'
'No, sir.'
'They are not gentlemen,' I said gravely. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 1 | The company, ushered by a disapproving butler into the yellow saloon of Sir Richard Wyndham's house in St James's Square, comprised two ladies and one reluctant gentleman. The gentleman, who was not much above thirty years of age, but sadly inclined to fat, seemed to feel the butler's disapproval, for upon that dignified individual's informing the elder of the two ladies that Sir Richard was not at home, he cast a deprecating glance at him, not in the least the glance of a peer of the realm upon a menial, but an age-old look of one helpless man to another, and said in a pleading tone: 'Well, then, don't you think, Lady Wyndham—? Louisa, hadn't we better—? I mean, no use going in, my love, is there?'
Neither his wife nor his mother-in-law paid any attention to this craven speech. 'If my brother is gone out, we will await his return,' said Louisa briskly.
'Your poor Papa was always out when one wanted him,' complained Lady Wyndham. 'It is very affecting to me to see Richard growing every day more like him.'
Her fading accents were so lachrymose that it seemed probable that she would dissolve into tears upon her son's doorstep. George, Lord Trevor, was uneasily aware of a handkerchief, clutched in one thin, gloved hand, and put forward no further objection to entering the house in the wake of the two ladies.
Declining all offers of refreshment, Lady Trevor escorted her parent into the Yellow Saloon, settled her comfortably upon a satin sofa, and announced her intention of remaining in St James's Square all day, if need be. George, with a very clear idea, born of sympathy, of what would be his brother-in-law's emotions upon returning to his residence to find a family deputation in possession of it, said unhappily: 'You know, I don't think we should, really I don't! I don't like it above half. I wish you would drop this notion you've taken into your heads:'
His wife, who was engaged in stripping off her lavender-kid gloves, threw him a look of indulgent contempt. 'My dear George, if you are afraid of Richard, let me assure you that I am not.'
'Afraid of him! No, indeed! But I wish you will consider that a man of nine-and-twenty won't relish having his affairs meddled with. Besides, he will very likely wonder what the deuce it has to do with me, and I'm sure I can't tell him! I wish I had not come.'
Louisa ignored this remark, considering it unworthy of being replied to, which indeed it was, since she ruled her lord with a rod of iron. She was a handsome woman, with a great deal of decision in her face, and a leavening gleam of humour. She was dressed, not perhaps in the height of fashion, which decreed that summer gauzes must reveal every charm of a lady's body, but with great elegance and propriety. Since she had a very good figure, the prevailing mode for high-waisted dresses, with low-cut bodices, and tiny puff-sleeves, became her very well: much better, in fact, than skin-tight pantaloons, and a long-tailed coat became her husband.
Fashion was not kind to George. He looked his best in buckskin breeches and top-boots, but he was unfortunately addicted to dandyism, and pained his friends and relatives by adopting every extravagance of dress, spending as much time over the arrangement of his cravat as Mr Brummell himself, and squeezing his girth into tight stays which had a way of creaking whenever he moved unwarily.
The third member of the party, reclining limply on the satin sofa, was a lady with quite as much determination as her daughter, and a far more subtle way of getting her wishes attended to. A widow of ten years' standing, Lady Wyndham enjoyed the frailest health. The merest hint of opposition was too much for the delicate state of her nerves; and anyone, observing her handkerchief, her vinaigrette, and the hartshorn which she usually kept by her, would have had to be stupid indeed to have failed to appreciate their sinister message. In youth, she had been a beauty; in middle age, everything about her seemed to have faded: hair, cheeks, eyes, and even her voice, which was plaintive, and so gentle that it was a wonder it ever made itself heard. Like her daughter, Lady Wyndham had excellent taste in dress, and since she was fortunate enough to possess a very ample jointure she was able to indulge her liking for the most expensive fal-lals of fashion without in any way curtailing her other expenses. This did not prevent her from thinking herself very badly off, but she was able to enjoy many laments over her straitened circumstances without feeling the least real pinch of poverty, and to win the sympathy of her acquaintances by dwelling sadly on the injustice of her late husband's will, which had placed his only son in the sole possession of his immense fortune. The jointure, her friends deduced hazily, was the veriest pittance.
Lady Wyndham, who lived in a charming house in Clarges Street, could never enter the mansion in St James's Square without suffering a pang. It was not, as might have been supposed from the look of pain she always cast upon it, a family domicile, but had been acquired by her son only a couple of years before. During Sir Edward's lifetime, the family had lived in a much larger, and most inconvenient house in Grosvenor Square. Upon Sir Richard's announcement that he proposed to set up an establishment of his own, this had been given up, so that Lady Wyndham had been able ever since to mourn its loss without being obliged to suffer any longer its inconveniences. But however much she might like her own house in Clarges Street it was not to be supposed that she could bear with equanimity her son's inhabiting a far larger house in St James's Square; and when every other source of grievance failed her, she always came back to that, and said, as she said now, in an illused voice: 'I cannot conceive what he should want with a house like this!'
Louisa, who had a very good house of her own, besides an estate in Berkshire, did not in the least grudge her brother his mansion. She replied: 'It doesn't signify, Mama. Except that he must have been thinking of marriage when he bought it. Would you not say so, George?'
George was flattered at being thus appealed to, but he was an honest, painstaking person, and he could not bring himself to say that he thought Richard had had any thought of marriage in his head, either when he had bought the house, or at any other time.
Louisa was displeased. 'Well!' she said, looking resolute, 'he must be brought to think of marriage!'
Lady Wyndham lowered her smelling-salts to interpolate: 'Heaven knows I would never urge my boy to do anything distasteful, but it has been an understood thing for years that he and Melissa Brandon would seal the long friendship between our families with the Nuptial Tie!'
George goggled at her, and wished himself otherwhere.
'If he doesn't wish to marry Melissa, I'm sure I should be the last person to press her claim,' said Louisa. 'But it is high time that he married someone, and if he has no other suitable young female in his eye, Melissa it must be.'
'I do not know how to face Lord Saar,' bemoaned Lady Wyndham, raising the vinaigrette to her nose again. 'Or poor dear Emily, with three girls besides Melissa to dispose of, and none of them more than passable. Sophia has spots, too.'
'I do not consider Augusta hopeless,' said Louisa fairly. 'Amelia, too, may improve.'
'Squints!' said George.
'A slight cast in one eye,' corrected Louisa. 'However, we are not concerned with that. Melissa is an extremely handsome creature. No one can deny that!'
'And such a desirable connection!' sighed Lady Wyndham. 'Quite one of the best families!'
'They tell me Saar won't last another five years, not at the rate he's going now,' said George. 'Everything mortgaged up to the hilt, and Saar drinking himself into his grave! They say his father did the same.'
Both ladies regarded him with disfavour. 'I hope, George, you do not mean to imply that Melissa is addicted to the bottle?' said his wife.
'Oh no, no! Lord, no, I never thought of such a thing! I'm sure she's an excellent young woman. But this I will say, Louisa: I don't blame Richard if he don't want her!' said George defiantly. 'Myself, I'd as soon marry a statue!'
'I must say,' conceded Louisa, 'she is a trifle cold, perhaps. But it is a very delicate position for her, you'll allow. It has been understood since both were children that she and Richard would make a match of it, and she knows that as well as we do. And here is Richard, behaving in the most odious way! I am out of all patience with him!'
George rather liked his brother-in-law, but he knew that it would be foolhardy to defend him, so he held his peace. Lady Wyndham took up the tale of woe. 'Heaven forbid that I should force my only son to a disagreeable marriage, but I live in hourly dread of his bringing home some dreadful, low-born creature on his arm, and expecting me to welcome her!'
A vision of his brother-in-law crossed George's mind's eye. He said doubtfully: 'Really, you know, I don't think he'll do that, ma'am.'
'George is quite right,' announced Louisa. 'I should think the better of Richard if he did. It quite shocks me to see him so impervious to every feminine charm! It is a great piece of nonsense for him to dislike the opposite sex, but one thing is certain: dislike females he may, but he owes a duty to the name, and marry he must! I am sure I have been at pains to introduce him to every eligible young woman in town, for I am by no means set on his marrying Melissa Brandon. Well! He would not look twice at any of them, so if that is the mind he is in, Melissa will suit him very well.'
'Richard thinks they all want him for his money,' ventured George.
'I dare say they may. What has that to say to anything, pray? I imagine you do not mean to tell me that Richard is romantic!'
No, George was forced to admit that Richard was not romantic.
'If I live to see him suitably married, I can die content!' said Lady Wyndham, who had every expectation of living for another thirty years. 'His present course fills my poor mother's heart with foreboding!'
Loyalty forced George to expostulate. 'No, really, ma'am! Really, I say! There's no harm in Richard, not the least in the world, 'pon my honour!'
'He puts me out of all patience!' said Louisa. 'I love him dearly, but I despise him with all my heart! Yes, I do, and I do not care who hears me say so! He cares for nothing but the set of his cravat, the polish on his boots, and the blending of his snuff!'
'His horses!' begged George unhappily. 'Oh, his horses! Very well! Let us admit him to be a famous whip! He beat Sir John Lade in their race to Brighton! A fine achievement indeed!'
'Very handy with his fives!' gasped George, sinking but game.
'You may admire a man for frequenting Jackson's Saloon, and Cribb's Parlour! I do not!'
'No, my love,' George said. 'No, indeed, my love!'
'And I make no doubt you see nothing reprehensible in his addiction to the gaming-table! But I had it on the most excellent authority that he dropped three thousand pounds at one sitting at Almack's!'
Lady Wyndham moaned, and dabbed at her eyes. 'Oh, do not say so!'
'Yes, but he's so devilish wealthy it can't signify!' said George.
'Marriage,' said Louisa, 'will put a stop to such fripperies.'
The depressing picture this dictum conjured up reduced George to silence. Lady Wyndham said, in a voice dark with mystery: 'Only a mother could appreciate my anxieties. He is at a dangerous age, and I live from day to day in dread of what he may do!'
George opened his mouth, encountered a look from his wife, shut it again, and tugged unhappily at his cravat.
The door opened; a Corinthian stood upon the threshold, cynically observing his relatives. 'A thousand apologies,' said the Corinthian, bored but polite. 'Your very obedient servant, ma'am. Louisa, yours! My poor George! Ah—was I expecting you?'
'Apparently not!' retorted Louisa, bristling.
'No, you weren't. I mean, they took it into their heads—I couldn't stop them!' said George heroically.
'I thought I was not,' said the Corinthian, closing the door, and advancing into the room. 'But my memory, you know, my lamentable memory!'
George, running an experienced eye over his brother-in-law, felt his soul stir. 'B'gad, Richard, I like that! That's a devilish well-cut coat, 'pon my honour, it is! Who made it?'
Sir Richard lifted an arm, and glanced at his cuff. 'Weston, George, only Weston.'
'George!' said Louisa awfully.
Sir Richard smiled faintly, and crossed the room to his mother's side. She held out her hand to him, and he bowed over it with languid grace, just brushing it with his lips. 'A thousand apologies, ma'am!' he repeated. 'I trust my people have looked after you—er—all of you?' His lazy glance swept the room. 'Dear me!' he said. 'George, you are near to it: oblige me, my dear fellow, by pulling the bell!'
'We do not need any refreshment, I thank you, Richard,' said Louisa.
The faint, sweet smile silenced her as none of her husband's expostulations had ever done. 'My dear Louisa, you mistake—I assure you, you mistake! George is in the most urgent need of—er—stimulant. Yes, Jeffries, I rang. The Madeira—oh, ah! and some ratafia, Jeffries, if you please!'
'Richard, that's the best Waterfall I've ever seen!' exclaimed George, his admiring gaze fixed on the intricate arrangement of the Corinthian's cravat.
'You flatter me, George; I fear you flatter me.'
'Pshaw!' snapped Louisa.
'Precisely, my dear Louisa,' agreed Sir Richard amiably.
'Do not try to provoke me, Richard!' said Louisa, on a warning note. 'I will allow your appearance to be everything that it should be—admirable, I am sure!'
'One does one's poor best,' murmured Sir Richard.
Her bosom swelled. 'Richard, I could hit you!' she declared.
The smile grew, allowing her a glimpse of excellent white teeth. 'I don't think you could, my dear.'
George so far forgot himself as to laugh. A quelling glance was directed upon him. 'George, be quiet!' said Louisa.
'I must say,' conceded Lady Wyndham, whose maternal pride could not be quite overborne, 'there is no one, except Mr Brummell, of course, who looks as well as you do, Richard.'
He bowed, but he did not seem to be unduly elated by this encomium. Possibly he took it as his due. He was a very notable Corinthian. From his Windswept hair (most difficult of all styles to achieve), to the toes of his gleaming Hessians, he might have posed as an advertisement for the Man of Fashion. His fine shoulders set off a coat of superfine cloth to perfection; his cravat, which had excited George's admiration, had been arranged by the hands of a master; his waistcoat was chosen with a nice eye; his biscuit-coloured pantaloons showed not one crease; and his Hessians with their jaunty gold tassels, had not only been made for him by Hoby, but were polished, George suspected, with a blacking mixed with champagne. A quizzing-glass on a black ribbon hung round his neck; a fob at his waist; and in one hand he carried a Sevres snuff-box. His air proclaimed his unutterable boredom, but no tailoring, no amount of studied nonchalance, could conceal the muscle in his thighs, or the strength of his shoulders. Above the starched points of his shirt-collar, a weary, handsome face showed its owner's disillusionment. Heavy lids drooped over grey eyes which were intelligent enough, but only to observe the vanities of the world; the smile which just touched that resolute mouth seemed to mock the follies of Sir Richard's fellow men.
Jeffries came back into the room with a tray, and set it upon a table. Louisa waved aside the offer of refreshment, but Lady Wyndham accepted it, and George, emboldened, by his mother-in-law's weakness, took a glass of Madeira.
'I dare say,' said Louisa, 'that you are wondering what we are here for.'
'I never waste my time in idle speculation,' replied Sir Richard gently. 'I feel sure that you are going to tell me what you are here for.'
'Mama and I have come to speak to you about your marriage,' said Louisa, taking the plunge.
'And what,' enquired Sir Richard, 'has George come to speak to me about?'
'That too, of course!'
'No, I haven't!' disclaimed George hurriedly. 'You know I said I'd have nothing to do with it! I never wanted to come at all!'
'Have some more Madeira,' said Sir Richard soothingly.
'Well, thank you, yes, I will. But don't think I'm here to badger you about something which don't concern me, because I'm not!'
'Richard!' said Lady Wyndham deeply, 'I dare no longer meet Saar face to face!'
'As bad as that, is he?' said Sir Richard. 'I haven't seen him myself these past few weeks, but I'm not at all surprised. I fancy I heard something about it, from someone—I forget whom. Taken to brandy, hasn't he?'
'Sometimes,' said Lady Wyndham, 'I think you are utterly devoid of sensibility!'
'He is merely trying to provoke you, Mama. You know perfectly well what Mama means, Richard. When do you mean to offer for Melissa?'
There was a slight pause. Sir Richard set down his empty wine-glass, and flicked with one long finger the petals of a flower in a bowl on the table. 'This year, next year, sometime—or never, my dear Louisa.'
'I am very sure she considers herself as good as plighted to you,' Louisa said.
Sir Richard was looking down at the flower under his hand, but at this he raised his eyes to his sister's face, in an oddly keen, swift look. 'Is that so?'
'How should it be otherwise? You know very well that Papa and Lord Saar designed it so years ago.'
The lids veiled his eyes again. 'How medieval of you!' sighed Sir Richard.
'Now, don't, pray, take me up wrongly, Richard! If you don't like Melissa, there is no more to be said. But you do like her—or if you don't, at least I never heard you say so! What Mama and I feel—and George, too—is that it is time and more that you were settled in life.'
A pained glanced reproached Lord Trevor. 'Et tu, Brute?' said Sir Richard.
'I swear I never said so!' declared George, choking over his Madeira. 'It was all Louisa. I dare say I may have agreed with her. You know how it is, Richard!'
'I know,' agreed Sir Richard, sighing. 'You too, Mama?'
'Oh Richard, I live only to see you happily married, with your children about you!' said Lady Wyndham, in trembling tones.
A slight, unmistakable shudder ran through the Corinthian. 'My children about me... Yes. Precisely, ma'am. Pray continue!'
'You owe it to the name,' pursued his mother. 'You are the last of the Wyndhams, for it's not to be supposed that your Uncle Lucius will marry at this late date. There is Melissa, dear girl, the very wife for you! So handsome, so distinguished—birth, breeding: everything of the most desirable!'
'Ah—your pardon, ma'am, but do you include Saar, and Cedric, not to mention Beverley, under that heading?'
'That's exactly what I say!' broke in George. ' "It's all very well," I said, "and if a man likes to marry an iceberg it's all one to me, but you can't call Saar a desirable father-in-law, damme if you can! While as for the girl's precious brothers," I said, "they'll ruin Richard inside a year!"'
'Nonsense!' said Louisa. 'It is understood, of course, that Richard would make handsome settlements. But as for his being responsible for Cedric's and Beverley's debts, I'm sure I know of no reason why he should!'
'You comfort me, Louisa,' said Sir Richard.
She looked up at him not unaffectionately. 'Well, I think it is time to be frank, Richard. People will be saying next that you are playing fast and loose with Melissa, for you must know the understanding between you is an open secret. If you had chosen to marry someone else, five, ten years ago, it would have been a different thing. But so far as I am aware your affections have never even been engaged, and here you are, close on thirty, as good as pledged to Melissa Brandon, and nothing settled!'
Lady Wyndham, though in the fullest agreement with her daughter, was moved at this point to defend her son, which she did by reminding Louisa that Richard was only twenty-nine after all.
'Mama, Richard will be thirty in less than six months. For I,' said Louisa with resolution, 'am turned thirty-one.'
'Louisa, I am touched!' said Sir Richard. 'Only the deepest sisterly devotion, I am persuaded, could have wrung from you such an admission.'
She could not repress a smile, but said with as much severity as she could muster: 'It is no laughing matter. You are no longer in your first youth, and you know as well as I do that it is your duty to think seriously of marriage.'
'Strange,' mused Sir Richard, 'that one's duty should be invariably so disagreeable.'
'I know,' said George, heaving a sigh. 'Very true! very true indeed!'
'Pooh! nonsense! What a coil you make of a simple matter!' Louisa said. 'Now, if I were to press you to marry some romantical miss, always wanting you to make love to her, and crying her eyes out every time you chose to seek your amusements out of her company, you might have reason to complain. But Melissa—yes, an iceberg, George, if you like, and what else, pray, is Richard?—Melissa, I say, will never plague you in that way.'
Sir Richard's eyes dwelled inscrutably upon her face for a moment. Then he moved to the table and poured himself out another glass of Madeira.
Louisa said defensively: 'Well, you don't wish her to cling about your neck, I suppose?'
'Not at all.'
'And you are not in love with any other woman, are you?'
'I am not.'
'Very well, then! To be sure, if you were in the habit of falling in and out of love, it would be a different matter. But, to be plain with you, you are the coldest, most indifferent, selfish creature alive, Richard, and you will find in Melissa an admirable partner.'
Inarticulate clucking sounds from George, indicative of protest, caused Sir Richard to wave a hand towards the Madeira. 'Help yourself, George, help yourself!'
'I must say, I think it most unkind in you to speak to your brother like that,' said Lady Wyndham. 'Not but what you are selfish, dear Richard. I'm sure I have said so over and over again. But so it is with the greater part of the world! Everywhere one turns one meets with nothing but ingratitude!'
'If I have done Richard an injustice, I will willingly ask his pardon,' said Louisa.
'Very handsomely said, my dear sister. You have done me no injustice. I wish you will not look so distressed, George: your pity is quite wasted on me, I assure you. Tell me, Louisa: have you reason to suppose that Melissa expects me to—er—pay my addresses to her?'
'Certainly I have. She has been expecting it any time these five years!'
Sir Richard looked a little startled. 'Poor girl!' he said. 'I must have been remarkably obtuse.'
His mother and sister exchanged glances. 'Does that mean that you will think seriously of marriage?' asked Louisa.
He looked thoughtfully down at her. 'I suppose it must come to that.'
'Well, for my part,' said George, defying his wife, 'I would look around me for some other eligible female! Lord, there are dozens of 'em littering town! Why, I've seen I don't know how many setting their caps at you! Pretty ones, too, but you never notice them, you ungrateful dog!'
'Oh yes, I do,' said Sir Richard, with a curl of the lips.
'Must George be vulgar?' asked Lady Wyndham tragically.
'Be quiet, George! And as for you, Richard, I consider it in the highest degree nonsensical for you to take up that attitude. There is no denying that you're the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart—Yes, Mama, that is vulgar too, and I beg your pardon—but you have a lower opinion of yourself than I credit you with if you can suppose that your fortune is the only thing about you which makes you a desirable parti. You are generally accounted handsome—indeed, no one, I believe, could deny that your person is such as must please; and when you will take the trouble to be conciliating there is nothing in your manners to disgust the nicest taste.'
'This encomium, Louisa, almost unmans me,' said Sir Richard, much moved.
'I am perfectly serious. I was about to add that you often spoil everything by your odd humours. I do not know how you should expect to engage a female's affection when you never bestow the least distinguishing notice upon any woman! I do not say that you are uncivil, but there is a languor, a reserve in your manner, which must repel a woman of sensibility.'
'I am a hopeless case indeed,' said Sir Richard.
'If you want to know what I think, which I do not suppose you do, so you need not tell me so, it is that you are spoilt, Richard. You have too much money, you have done everything you wished to do before you are out of your twenties; you have been courted by match-making Mamas, fawned on by toadies, and indulged by all the world. The end of it is that you are bored to death. There! I have said it, and though you may not thank me for it, you will admit that I am right.'
'Quite right,' agreed Sir Richard. 'Hideously right, Louisa!'
She got up. 'Well, I advise you to get married and settle down. Come, Mama! We have said all we meant to say, and you know we are to call in Brook Street on our way home. George, do you mean to come with, us?'
'No,' said George. 'Not to call in Brook Street, I daresay I shall stroll up to White's presently.'
'Just as you please, my love,' said Louisa, drawing on her gloves again.
When the ladies had been escorted to the waiting barouche, George did not at once set out for his club, but accompanied his brother-in-law back into the house. He preserved a sympathetic silence until they were out of earshot of the servants, but caught Sir Richard's eye then, in a very pregnant look, and uttered the one word: 'Women!'
'Quite so,' said Sir Richard.
'Do you know what I'd do if I were you, my boy?'
'Yes,' said Sir Richard.
George was disconcerted. 'Damn it, you can't know!'
'You would do precisely what I shall do.'
'What's that?'
'Oh—offer for Melissa Brandon, of course,' said Sir Richard.
'Well, I wouldn't,' said George positively. 'I wouldn't marry Melissa Brandon for fifty sisters! I'd find a cosier armful, 'pon my soul I would!'
'The cosiest armful of my acquaintance was never so cosy as when she wanted to see my purse-strings untied,' said Sir Richard cynically.
George shook his head. 'Bad, very bad! I must say, it's enough to sour any man. But Louisa's right, you know: you ought to get married. Won't do to let the name die out.' An idea occurred to him. 'You wouldn't care to put it about that you'd lost all your money, I suppose?'
'No,' said Sir Richard, 'I wouldn't.'
'I read somewhere of a fellow who went off to some place where he wasn't known. Devil of a fellow he was: some kind of a foreign Count, I think. I don't remember precisely, but there was a girl in it, who fell in love with him for his own sake.'
'There would be,' said Sir Richard.
'You don't like it?' George rubbed his nose, a little crestfallen. 'Well, damme if I know what to suggest!'
He was still pondering the matter when the butler announced Mr Wyndham, and a large, portly, and convivial-looking gentleman rolled into the room, ejaculating cheerfully: 'Hallo, George! You here? Ricky, my boy, your mother's been at me again, confound her! Made me promise I'd come round to see you, though what the devil she thinks I can do is beyond me!'
'Spare me!' said Sir Richard wearily. 'I have already sustained a visit from my mother, not to mention Louisa.'
'Well, I'm sorry for you, my boy, and if you take my advice you'll marry that Brandon-wench, and be done with it. What's that you have there? Madeira? I'll take a glass.'
Sir Richard gave him one. He lowered his bulk into a large armchair, stretched his legs out before him, and raised the glass. 'Here's a health to the bridegroom!' he said, with a chuckle. 'Don't look so glum, nevvy! Think of the joy you'll be bringing into Saar's life!'
'Damn you,' said Sir Richard. 'If you had ever had a shred of proper feeling, Lucius, you would have got married fifty years ago, and reared a pack of brats in your image. A horrible thought, I admit, but at least I should not now be cast for the role of Family Sacrifice.'
'Fifty years ago,' retorted his uncle, quite unmoved by these insults, 'I was only just breeched. This is a very tolerable wine, Ricky. By the way, they tell me young Beverley Brandon's badly dipped. You'll be a damned public benefactor if you marry that girl. Better let your lawyer attend to the settlements, though. I'd be willing to lay you a monkey Saar tries to bleed you white. What's the matter with you, George? Got the toothache?'
'I don't like it,' said George. 'I told Louisa so at the outset, but you know what women are! Myself, I wouldn't have Melissa Brandon if she were the last woman left single.'
'What, she ain't the spotty one, surely?' demanded Lucius, concerned.
'No, that's Sophia.'
'Oh, well, nothing to worry about then! You marry the girl, Ricky: you'll never have any peace if you don't. Fill up your glass, George, and we'll have another toast!'
'What is it this time?' enquired Sir Richard, replenishing the glasses. 'Don't spare me!'
'To a pack of brats in your image, nevvy: here's to 'em!' grinned his uncle. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 2 | Lord Saar lived in Brook Street with his wife, and his family of two sons and four daughters. Sir Richard Wyndham, driving to his prospective father-in-law's house twenty-four hours after his interview with his own parent, was fortunate enough to find Saar away from home, and Lady Saar, the butler informed him, on her way to Bath with the Honourable Sophia. He fell instead into the arms of the Honourable Cedric Brandon, a rakish young gentleman of lamentable habits, and a disastrous charm of manner.
'Ricky, my only friend!' cried the Honourable Cedric, dragging Sir Richard into a small saloon at the back of the house. 'Don't tell me you've come to offer for Melissa! They say good news don't kill a man, but I never listen to gossip! M'father says ruin stares us in the face. Lend me the money, dear boy, and I'll buy myself a pair of colours, and be off to the Peninsula, damme if I won't! But listen to me, Ricky! Are you listening?' He looked anxiously at Sir Richard, appeared satisfied, and said, wagging a solemn finger: 'Don't do it! There isn't a fortune big enough to settle our little affairs: take my word for it! Have nothing to do with Beverley! They say Fox gamed away a fortune before he was twenty-one. Give you my word, he was nothing to Bev, nothing at all. Between ourselves, Ricky, the old man has taken to brandy. H'sh! Not a word! Mustn't tell tales about m'father! But run, Ricky! That's my advice to you: run!'
'Would you buy yourself a pair of colours, if I gave you the money?' asked Sir Richard.
'Sober, yes; drunk, no!' replied Cedric, with his wholly disarming smile. 'I'm very sober now, but I shan't be so for long. Don't give me a groat, dear old boy! Don't give Bev a groat! He's a bad man. Now, when I'm sober I'm a good man—but I ain't sober above six hours out of the twenty-four, so you be warned! Now I'm off. I've done my best for you, for I like you, Ricky, but if you go to perdition in spite of me, I'll wash my hands of you. No, damme, I'll sponge on you for the rest of my days! Think, dear boy, think! Bev and your very obedient on your doorstep six days out of seven—duns—threats—wife's brothers done-up—pockets to let—wife in tears—nothing to do but pay! Don't do it! Fact is, we ain't worth it!'
'Wait!' Sir Richard said, barring his passage. 'If I settle your debts, will you go to the Peninsula?'
'Ricky, it's you who aren't sober. Go home!'
'Consider, Cedric, how well you would look in Hussar uniform!'
An impish smile danced in Cedric's eyes. 'Wouldn't I just! But at this present I'd look better in Hyde Park. Out of the way, dear boy! I've a very important engagement. Backed a goose to win a hundred-yard race against a turkey-cock. Can't lose! Greatest sporting event of the season!'
He was gone on the words, leaving Sir Richard, not, indeed, to run, as advised, but to await the pleasure of the Honourable Melissa Brandon.
She did not keep him waiting for long. A servant came to request him to step upstairs, and he followed the man up the wide staircase to the withdrawing-room on the first floor.
Melissa Brandon was a handsome, dark-haired young woman, a little more than twenty-five years old. Her profile was held to be faultless, but in full face her eyes were discovered to be rather too hard for beauty. She had not, in her first seasons, lacked suitors, but none of the gentlemen attracted by her undeniable good looks, had ever, in the cock-fighting phrase of her graceless elder brother, come up to scratch. As he bowed over her hand, Sir Richard remembered George's iceberg simile, and at once banished it from his obedient mind.
'Well, Richard?'
Melissa's voice was cool, rather matter-of-fact, just as her smile seemed more a mechanical civility than a spontaneous expression of pleasure.
'I hope I see you well, Melissa?' Sir Richard said formally.
'Perfectly, I thank you. Pray sit down! I apprehend that you have come to discuss the question of our marriage.'
He regarded her from under slightly raised brows. 'Dear me!' he said mildly. 'Someone would appear to have been busy.'
She was engaged upon some stitchery, and went on plying her needle with unruffled composure. 'Do not let us beat about the bush!' she said. 'I am certainly past the age of being missish, and you, I believe, may rank as a sensible man.'
'Were you ever missish?' enquired Sir Richard.
'I trust not. I have no patience with such folly. Nor am I romantic. In that respect, we must be thought to be well-suited.'
'Must we?' said Sir Richard, gently swinging his gold-handled quizzing-glass to and fro.
She seemed amused. 'Certainly! I trust you have not, at this late date, grown sentimental! It would be quite absurd!'
'Senility,' pensively observed Sir Richard, 'often brings sentiment in its train. Or so I have been informed.'
'We need not concern ourselves with that. I like you very well, Richard, but there is just a little nonsense in your disposition which makes you turn everything to jest. I myself am of a more serious nature.'
'Then in that respect, we cannot be thought to be well-suited,' suggested Sir Richard.
'I do not consider the objection insuperable. The life you have chosen to lead up till now has not been such as to encourage serious reflection, after all. I dare say you may grow more dependable, for you do not want for sense. That, however, must be left to the future. At all events, I am not so unreasonable as to feel the difference in our natures to be an impassable barrier to marriage.'
'Melissa,' said Sir Richard, 'will you tell me something?'
She looked up. 'Pray, what do you wish me to tell you?'
'Have you ever been in love?' asked Sir Richard.
She coloured slightly. 'No. From my observation, I am thankful that I have not. There is something excessively vulgar about persons under the sway of strong emotions. I do not say it is wrong, but I believe I have something more of fastidiousness than most, and I find such subjects extremely distasteful.'
'You do not,' Sir Richard drawled, "envisage the possibility of—er—falling in love at some future date?'
'My dear Richard! With whom, pray?'
'Shall we say with myself?'
She laughed. 'Now you are being absurd! If you were told that it would be necessary to approach me with some show of love-making, you were badly advised. Ours would be a marriage of convenience. I could contemplate nothing else. I like you very well, but you are not at all the sort of man to arouse those warmer passions in my breast. But I see no reason why that should worry either of us. If you were romantic, it would be a different matter.'
'I fear,' said Sir Richard, 'that I must be very romantic'
'I suppose you are jesting again,' she replied, with a faint shrug.
'Not at all. I am so romantic that I indulge my fancy with the thought of some woman—doubtless mythical—who might desire to marry me, not because I am a very rich man, but because—you will have to forgive the vulgarity—because she loved me!'
She looked rather contemptuous. 'I should have supposed you to be past the age of fustian, Richard. I say nothing against love, but, frankly, love-matches seem to me a trifle beneath us. One would say you had been hobnobbing with the bourgeoisie at Islington Spa, or some such low place! I do not forget that I am a Brandon. I dare say we are very proud; indeed, I hope we are!'
'That,' said Sir Richard dryly, 'is an aspect of the situation which, I confess, had not so far occurred to me.'
She was amazed. 'I had not thought it possible! I imagined everyone knew what we Brandons feel about our name, our birth, our tradition!'
'I hesitate to wound you, Melissa,' said Sir Richard, 'but the spectacle of a woman of your name, birth, and tradition, cold-bloodedly offering herself to the highest bidder is not one calculated to impress the world with a very strong notion of her pride.'
'This is indeed the language of the theatre!' she exclaimed. 'My duty to my family demands that I should marry well, but let me assure you that, even that could not make me stoop to ally myself with one of inferior breeding.'
'Ah, this is pride indeed!' said Sir Richard, faintly smiling.
'I do not understand you. You must know that my father's affairs are in such case as—in short—'
'I am aware,' Sir Richard said gently. 'I apprehend it is to be my privilege to—er—unravel Lord Saar's affairs.'
'But of course!' she replied, surprised out of her statuesque calm. 'No other consideration could have prevailed upon me to accept your suit!'
'This,' said Sir Richard, pensively regarding the toe of one Hessian boot, 'becomes a trifle delicate. If frankness is to be the order of the day, my dear Melissa, I must point out to you that I have not yet—er—proffered my suit.'
She was quite undisturbed by this snub, but replied coldly: 'I did not suppose that you would so far forget what is due to our positions as to approach me with an offer. We do not belong to that world. You will no doubt seek an interview with my father.'
'I wonder if I shall?' said Sir Richard.
'I imagine that you most certainly will,' responded the lady, snipping her thread. 'Your circumstances are as well known to me as mine are to you. If I may say so bluntly, you are fortunate to be in a position to offer for a Brandon.'
He looked meditatively at her, but made no remark. After a pause, she continued: 'As for the future, neither of us, I trust, would make great demands upon the other. You have your amusements: they do not concern me, and however much my reason may deprecate your addiction to pugilism, curricle-racing, and deep basset—'
'Pharaoh,' he interpolated.
'Very well, pharaoh: it is all one. However much I may deprecate such follies, I say, I do not desire to interfere with your tastes.'
'You are very obliging,' bowed Sir Richard. 'Bluntly, Melissa, I may do as I please if I will hand you my purse?"
'That is putting it bluntly indeed,' she replied composedly. She folded up her needlework, and laid it aside. 'Papa has been expecting a visit from you. He will be sorry to hear that you called while he was away from home. He will be with us again tomorrow, and you may be sure of finding him, if you care to call at—shall we say eleven o'clock?'
He rose. 'Thank you, Melissa. I feel that my time has not been wasted, even though Lord Saar was not here to receive me.'
'I hope not, indeed,' she said, extending her hand. 'Come! We have had a talk which must, I feel, prove valuable. You think me unfeeling, I dare say, but you will do me the justice to admit that I have not stooped to unworthy pretence. Our situation is peculiar, which is why I overcame my reluctance to discuss the question of our marriage with you. We have been as good as betrothed these five years, and more.'
He took her hand. 'Have you considered yourself betrothed to me these five years?' he enquired.
For the first time in their interview her eyes failed to meet his. 'Certainly,' she replied.
'I see,' said Sir Richard, and took his leave of her.
He put in a belated appearance at Almack's that evening. No one, admiring his point-de-vice appearance, or listening to his lazy drawl, could have supposed him to be on the eve of making the most momentous decision of his life. Only his uncle, rolling into the club some time after midnight, and observing the dead men at his elbow, guessed that the die had been cast. He told George Trevor, whom he found just rising from the basset-table, that Ricky was taking it hard, a pronouncement which distressed George, and made him say: 'I have not exchanged two words with him. Do you tell me he has actually offered for Melissa Brandon?'
'I'm not telling you anything,' said Lucius. 'All I say is that he's drinking hard and plunging deep.'
In great concern, George seized the first opportunity that offered of engaging his brother-in-law's attention. This was not until close on three o'clock, when Sir Richard at last rose from the pharaoh-table, and Sir Richard was not, by that time, in the mood for private conversation. He had lost quite a large sum of money, and had drunk quite a large quantity of brandy, but neither of these circumstances was troubling him.
'No luck, Ricky?' his uncle asked him.
A somewhat hazy but still perfectly intelligent glance mocked him. 'Not at cards, Lucius. But think of the adage!'
George knew that Sir Richard could carry his wine as well as any man of his acquaintance, but a certain reckless note in his voice alarmed him. He plucked at his sleeve, and said in a lowered tone: 'I wish you will let me have a word with you!'
'Dear George—my very dear George!' said Sir Richard, amiably smiling. 'You must be aware that I am not—quite—sober. No words tonight.'
'I shall come round to see you in the morning, then,' said George, forgetting that it was already morning.
'I shall have the devil of a head,' said Sir Richard.
He made his way out of the club, his curly-brimmed hat at an angle on his head, his ebony cane tucked under one arm. He declined the porter's offer to call up a chair, remarking sweetly: 'I am devilish drunk, and I shall walk.'
The porter grinned. He had seen many gentlemen in all the various stages of inebriety, and he did not think that Sir Richard, who spoke with only the faintest slurring of his words, and who walked with quite wonderful balance, was in very desperate straits. If he had not known Sir Richard well, he would not, he thought, have seen anything amiss with him, beyond his setting off in quite the wrong direction for St James's Square. He felt constrained to call Sir Richard's attention to this, but begged pardon when Sir Richard said: 'I know. The dawn is calling me, however. I am going for a long, long walk.'
'Quite so, sir,' said the porter, and stepped back.
Sir Richard, his head swimming a little from sudden contact with the cool air, strolled aimlessly away in a northerly direction.
His head cleared after a while. In a detached manner, he reflected that it would probably begin to ache in a short time, and he would feel extremely unwell, and not a little sorry for himself. At the moment, however, while the fumes of brandy still wreathed about his brain, a curious irresponsibility possessed him. He felt reckless, remote, divorced from his past and his future. The dawn was spreading a grey light over the quiet streets, and the breeze fanning his cheeks was cool, and fresh enough to make him glad of his light evening cloak. He wandered into Brook Street, and laughed up at the shuttered windows of Saar's house. 'My gentle bride!' he said, and kissed his fingers in the direction of the house. 'God, what a damned fool I am!'
He repeated this, vaguely pleased with the remark, and walked down the long street. It occurred to him that his gentle bride would scarcely be flattered, if she could see him now, and this thought made him laugh again. The Watch, encountered at the north end of Grosvenor Square, eyed him dubiously, and gave him a wide berth. Gentlemen in Sir Richard's condition not infrequently amused themselves with a light-hearted pastime known as Boxing the Watch, and this member of that praiseworthy force was not anxious to court trouble.
Sir Richard did not notice the Watch, nor, to do him justice, would he have felt in the least tempted to molest him if he had noticed him. Somewhere, in the recesses of his brain, Sir Richard was aware that he was the unluckiest dog alive. He felt very bitter about this, as though all the world were in league against him; and, as he branched off erratically down a quiet side street, he was cynically sorry for himself, that in ten years spent in the best circles he had not had the common good fortune to meet one female whose charms had cost him a single hour's sleep. It did not seem probable that he would be more fortunate in the future. 'Which, I suppose,' remarked Sir Richard to one of the new gas-lamps, 'is a—is a consummation devoutly to be wished, since I am about to offer for Melissa Brandon.'
It was at this moment that he became aware of a peculiar circumstance. Someone was climbing out of a second-storey window of one of the prim houses on the opposite side of the street.
Sir Richard stood still, and blinked at this unexpected sight. His divine detachment still clung to him; he was interested in what he saw, but by no means concerned with it. 'Undoubtedly a burglar,' he said, and leaned nonchalantly on his cane to watch the end of the adventure. His somewhat sleepy gaze discovered that whoever was escaping from the prim house was proposing to do so by means of knotted sheets, which fell disastrously short of the ground. 'Not a burglar,' decided Sir Richard, and crossed the road.
By the time he had reached the opposite kerbstone, the mysterious fugitive had arrived, somewhat fortuitously, at the end of his improvised rope, and was dangling precariously above the shallow area, trying with one desperate foot to find some kind of a resting-place on the wall of the house. Sir Richard saw that he was a very slight youth, only a boy, in fact, and went in a leisurely fashion to the rescue.
The fugitive caught sight of him as he descended the area-steps, and gasped with a mixture of fright and thankfulness: 'Oh! Could you help me, please? I didn't know it was so far. I thought I should be able to jump, only I don't think I can.'
'My engaging youth,' said Sir Richard, looking up at the flushed face peering down at him. 'What, may I ask, are you doing on the end of that rope?'
'Hush!' begged the fugitive. 'Do you think you could catch me, if I let go?'
'I will do my poor best,' promised Sir Richard.
The fugitive's feet were only just above his reach, and in another five seconds the fugitive descended into his arms with a rush that made him stagger, and almost lose his balance. He retained it by a miracle, clasping strongly to his chest an unexpectedly light body.
Sir Richard was not precisely sober, but although the brandy fumes had produced in his brain a not unpleasant sense of irresponsibility, they had by no means fuddled his intellect. Sir Richard, his chin tickled by curls, and his arms full of fugitive, made a surprising discovery. He set the fugitive down, saying in a matter-of-fact voice: 'Yes, but I don't think you are a youth, after all.'
'No, I'm a girl,' replied the fugitive, apparently undismayed by his discovery. 'But, please, will you come away before they wake up?'
'Who?' asked Sir Richard.
'My aunt—all of them!' whispered the fugitive. 'I am very much obliged to you for helping me—and do you think you could untie this knot, if you please? You see, I had to tie my bundle on my back, and now I can't undo it. And where is my hat?'
'It fell off,' said Sir Richard, picking it up, and dusting it on his sleeve. 'I am not quite sober, you know—in fact, I am drunk—but I cannot help feeling that this is all a trifle—shall we say—irregular?'
'Yes, but there was nothing else to be done,' explained the fugitive, trying to look over her own shoulder at what Sir Richard was doing with the recalcitrant knot.
'Oblige me by standing still!' requested Sir Richard.
'Oh, I am sorry! I can't think how it worked right round me like that. Thank you! I am truly grateful to you!'
Sir Richard was eyeing the bundle through his quizzing-glass. 'Are you a burglar?' he enquired.
A chuckle, hastily choked, greeted this. 'No, of course I'm not. I couldn't manage a bandbox, so I had to tie all my things up in a shawl. And now I think I must be going, if you please.'
'Drunk I undoubtedly am,' said Sir Richard, 'but some remnants of sanity still remain with me. You cannot, my good child, wander about the streets of London at this hour of night, and dressed in those clothes. I believe I ought to ring that bell, and hand you over to your—aunt, did you say?'
Two agitated hands clasped his arm. 'Oh, don't!' begged the fugitive. 'Please don't!'
'Well, what am I to do with you?' asked Sir Richard.
'Nothing. Only tell me the way to Holborn!'
'Why Holborn?'
'I have to go to the White Horse Inn, to catch the stagecoach for Bristol.'
'That settles it,' said Sir Richard. 'I will not set you a foot on your way until I have the whole story from you. It's my belief you are a dangerous criminal.'
'I am not!' said the fugitive indignantly. 'Anyone with the veriest speck of sensibility would feel for my plight! I am escaping from the most odious persecution.'
'Fortunate child!' said Sir Richard, taking her bundle from her. "I wish I might do the same. Let us remove from this neighbourhood. I have seldom seen a street that depressed me more. I can't think how I came here. Do you feel that our agreeable encounter would be improved by an exchange of names, or are you travelling incognita?'
'Yes, I shall have to make up a name for myself. I hadn't thought of that. My real name is Penelope Creed. Who are you?'
'I,' said Sir Richard, 'am Richard Wyndham, wholly at your service.'
'Beau Wyndham?' asked Miss Creed knowledgeably.
'Beau Wyndham,' bowed Sir Richard. 'Is it possible that we can have met before?'
'Oh no, but of course I have heard of you. My cousin tries to tie his cravat in a Wyndham Fall. At least, that is what he says it is, but it looks like a muddle to me.'
"Then it is not a Wyndham Fall," said Sir Richard firmly.
'No, that's what I thought. My cousin tries to be a dandy, but he has a face like a fish. They want me to marry him.'
'What a horrible thought!' said Sir Richard, shuddering.
'I told you you would feel for my plight!' said Miss Creed. 'So would you now set me on my way to Holborn?'
'No,' replied Sir Richard.
'But you must!' declared Miss Creed, on a note of panic. 'Where are we going?'
'I cannot walk about the streets all night. We had better repair to my house to discuss this matter.'
'No!' said Miss Creed, standing stock-still in the middle of the pavement.
Sir Richard sighed. 'Rid yourself of the notion that I cherish any villainous designs upon your person,' he said. 'I imagine I might well be your father. How old are you?'
'I am turned seventeen.'
'Well, I am nearly thirty,' said Sir Richard.
Miss Creed worked this out. 'You couldn't possibly be my father!'
'I am far too drunk to solve arithmetical problems. Let it suffice that I have not the slightest intention of making love to you.'
'Well, then, I don't mind accompanying you' said Miss Creed handsomely. 'Are you really drunk?'
'Vilely,' said Sir Richard.
'No one would credit it, I assure you. You carry your wine very well.'
'You speak as one with experience in these matters,' said Sir Richard.
'My father was used to say that it was most important to see how a man behaved when in his cups. My cousin becomes excessively silly.'
'You know,' said Sir Richard, knitting his brows, 'the more I hear of this cousin of yours the more I feel you should not be allowed to marry him. Where are we now?'
'Piccadilly, I think,' replied Miss Creed.
'Good! I live in St James's Square. Why do they want you to marry your cousin?'
'Because,' said Miss Creed mournfully, 'I am cursed with a large fortune!'
Sir Richard halted in the middle of the road. 'Cursed with a large fortune?' he repeated.
'Yes, indeed. You see, my father had no other children, and I believe I am most fabulously wealthy, besides having a house in Somerset, which they won't let me live in. When he died I had to live with Aunt Almeria. I was only twelve years old, you see. And now she is persecuting me to marry my cousin Frederick. So I ran away."
'The man with a face like a fish?'
'Yes.'
'You did quite right,' said Sir Richard.
'Well, I think I did.'
'Not a doubt of it. Why Holborn?'
'I told you,' replied Miss Creed patiently. 'I am going to get on the Bristol coach.'
'Oh! Why Bristol?'
'Well, I'm not going to Bristol precisely, but my house is in Somerset, and I have a very great friend there. I haven't seen him for nearly five years, but we used to play together, and we pricked our fingers—mixing the blood, you know—and we made a vow to marry one another when we were grown-up.'
This is all very romantic,' commented Sir Richard.
'Yes, isn't it?' said Miss Creed enthusiastically. 'You are not married, are you?'
'No. Oh, my God!'
'Why, what is the matter?'
'I've just remembered that I am going to be.'
'Don't you want to be?'
'No.'
'But no one could force you to be married!'
'My good girl, you do not know my relatives,' said Sir Richard bitterly.
'Did they talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you? And say it was your duty? And plague your life out? And cry at you?' asked Miss Creed.
'Something of the sort,' admitted Sir Richard. 'Is that what your relatives did to you?'
'Yes. So I stole Geoffrey's second-best suit, and climbed out of the window.'
'Who is Geoffrey?'
'Oh, he is my other cousin! He is at Harrow, and his clothes fit me perfectly. Is this your house?'
'This is my house.'
'But wait!' said Miss Creed. 'Will not the porter be sitting up to open the door to you?'
'I don't encourage people to sit up for me,' said Sir Richard, producing from his pocket a key, and fitting it into the lock.
'But I expect you have a valet,' suggested Miss Creed, hanging back. 'He will be waiting to help you to bed.'
'True,' said Sir Richard. 'But he will not come to my room until I ring the bell. You need have no fear.'
'Oh, in that case—!' said Miss Creed, relieved, and followed him blithely into the house.
A lamp was burning in the hall, and a candle was placed on a marble-topped table, in readiness for Sir Richard. He kindled it by thrusting it into the lamp, and led his guest into the library. Here there were more candles, in chandeliers fixed to the wall. Sir Richard lit as many of these as seemed good to him, and turned to inspect Miss Creed.
She had taken off her hat, and was standing in the middle of the room, looking interestedly about her. Her hair, which clustered in feathery curls on the top of her head, and was somewhat raggedly cut at the back, was guinea-gold; her eyes were a deep blue, very large and trustful, and apt at any moment to twinkle with merriment. She had a short little nose, slightly freckled, a most decided chin, and a pair of dimples.
Sir Richard, critically observing her, was unimpressed by these charms. He said: 'You look the most complete urchin indeed!'
She seemed to take this as a tribute. She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said: 'Do I? Truly?'
His gaze travelled slowly over her borrowed raiment. 'Horrible!' he said. 'Are you under the impression that you have tied that—that travesty of a cravat in a Wyndham Fall?'
'No, but the thing is I have never tied a cravat before,' she explained.
'That,' said Sir Richard, 'is obvious. Come here!'
She approached obediently, and stood still while his expert fingers wrought with the crumpled folds round her neck.
'No, it is beyond even my skill,' he said at last. 'I shall have to lend you one of mine. Never mind; sit down, and let us talk this matter over. My recollection is none of the clearest, but I fancy you said you were going into Somerset to marry a friend of your childhood.'
'Yes, Piers Luttrell,' nodded Miss Creed, seating herself in a large armchair.
'Furthermore, you are just seventeen.'
'Turned seventeen,' she corrected.
'Don't quibble! And you propose to undertake this journey as a passenger on an Accommodation coach?'
'Yes,' agreed Miss Creed.
'And, as though this were not enough, you are going alone?'
'Of course I am.'
'My dear child,' said Sir Richard, 'drunk I may be, but not so drunk as to acquiesce in this fantastic scheme, believe me.'
'I don't think you are drunk,' said Miss Creed. 'Besides, it has nothing to do with you! You cannot interfere in my affairs merely because you helped me out of the window.'
'I didn't help you out of the window. Something tells me I ought to restore you to the bosom of your family.'
Miss Creed turned rather white, and said in a small, but very clear voice: 'If you did that it would be the most cruel—the most treacherous thing in the world!'
'I suppose it would,' he admitted.
There was a pause. Sir Richard unfobbed his snuff-box with a flick of one practised finger, and took a pinch. Miss Creed swallowed, and said: 'If you had ever seen my cousin, you would understand.'
He glanced down at her, but said nothing.
'He has a wet mouth,' said Miss Creed despairingly.
'That settles it,' said Sir Richard, shutting his snuff-box. 'I will escort you to your childhood's friend.'
Miss Creed blushed. 'You? But you can't!'
'Why can't I?'
'Because—because I don't know you, and I can very well go by myself, and—well, it's quite absurd! I see now that you are drunk.'
'Let me inform you,' said Sir Richard, 'that missish airs don't suit those clothes. Moreover, I don't like them. Either you will travel to Somerset in my company, or you will go back to your aunt. Take your choice!'
'Do please consider!' begged Miss Creed. 'You know I am obliged to travel in the greatest secrecy. If you went with me, no one would know what had become of you.'
'No one would know what had become of me,' repeated Sir Richard slowly. 'No one—my girl, you have no longer any choice: I am going with you to Somerset!' |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 3 | As no argument produced the least effect on Sir Richard's suddenly reckless mood, Miss Creed abandoned her conscientious attempt to dissuade him from accompanying her on her journey, and owned that his protection would be welcome. 'It is not that I am afraid to go by myself,' she explained, 'but, to tell you the truth, I am not quite used to do things all alone.'
'I should hope,' said Sir Richard, 'that you are not quite used to travelling in the common stage either.'
'No, of course I am not. It will be quite an adventure! Have you ever travelled by stagecoach?'
'Never. We shall travel post'
'Travel post? You must be mad!' exclaimed Miss Creed. 'I dare say you are known at every posting-inn on the Bath road. We should be discovered in a trice. Why, I had thought of all that even before you made up your mind to join me! My cousin Frederick is too stupid to think of anything, but my Aunt Almeria is not, and I make no doubt she will guess that I have run away to my own home, and follow me. This is one of the reasons why I made up my mind to journey in the stage. She will enquire for me at the posting-houses, and no one will be able to give her the least news of me. And just think what a bustle there would be if it were discovered that we had been travelling about the country together in a postchaise!'
'Does it seem to you that there would be less impropriety in our travelling in the stage?' enquired Sir Richard.
'Yes, much less. In fact, I do not see that it is improper at all, for how can I prevent your booking a seat in a public vehicle, if you wish to do so? Besides, I have not enough money to hire a postchaise.'
'I thought you said you were cursed with a large fortune?'
'Yes, but they won't let me have anything but the most paltry allowance until I come of age, and I've spent most of this month's pin-money.'
'I will be your banker,' said Sir Richard.
Miss Creed shook her head vigorously. 'No, indeed you will not! One should never be beholden to strangers. I shall pay everything for myself. Of course, if you are set against travelling by the stage, I do not see what is to be done. Unless—' she broke off as an idea occurred to her, and said, with sparkling eyes: 'I have a famous notion! You are a notable whip, are you not?'
'I believe I am accounted so,' replied Sir Richard.
'Well, supposing you were to drive in your own curricle? Then I could get up behind, and pretend to be your Tiger, and hold the yard of tin, and blow up for the change and—'
'No!' said Sir Richard.
She looked disappointed. 'I thought it would be exciting. However, I dare say you are right.'
'I am right,' said Sir Richard. "The more I think of it, the more I see that there is much to be said for the stagecoach. At what hour did you say that it leaves town?'
'At nine o'clock, from the White Horse Inn, in Fetter Lane. Only we must go there long before that, on account of your servants. What is the time now?'
Sir Richard consulted his watch. 'Close on five,' he replied.
'Then we have not a moment to lose,' said Miss Creed. 'Your servants will be stirring in another hour. But you can't travel in those clothes, can you?'
'No,' he said, 'and I can't travel with that cravat of yours either, or that abominable bundle. And, now I come to look at you more particularly, I never saw hair worse cut.'
'You mean the back, I expect,' said Miss Creed, unresentful of these strictures. 'Luckily, it has always been short in front. I had to chop the back bits off myself, and I could not well see what I was about.'
'Wait here!' commanded Sir Richard, and left the room.
When he returned it was more than half an hour later, and he had shed his evening-dress for buckskin breeches, and top-boots, and a coat of blue superfine cloth. Miss Creed greeted him with considerable relief. 'I began to fear you had forgotten me, or fallen asleep!' she told him.
'Nothing of the sort!' said Sir Richard, setting a small cloak-bag and a large portmanteau down on the floor. 'Drunk or sober, I never forget my obligations. Stand up, and I will see what I can do towards making you look more presentable.'
He had a snowy white cravat over one arm, and a pair of scissors in his hand. A few judicious snips greatly improved the appearance of Miss Creed's head, and by the time a comb had been ruthlessly dragged through her curls, forcing rather than coaxing them into a more manly style, she began to look quite neat, though rather watery-eyed. Her crumpled cravat was next cast aside, and one of Sir Richard's own put round her neck. She was so anxious to see how he was arranging it that she stood on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging above the mantelpiece, and got her ears boxed.
'Will you stand still?" said Sir Richard.
Miss Creed sniffed, and subsided into dark mutterings. However, when he released her, and she was able to see the result of his handiwork, she was so pleased that she forgot her injuries, and exclaimed: 'Oh, how nice I look! Is it a Wyndham Fall?'
'Certainly not!' Sir Richard replied. The Wyndham Fall is not for scrubby schoolboys, let me tell you.'
'I am not a scrubby schoolboy!'
'You look like one. Now put what you have in that bundle into the cloak-bag, and we'll be off.'
'I have a very good mind not to go with you,' said Miss Creed, glowering.
'No, you haven't. You are now my young cousin, and we are wholly committed to a life of adventure. What did you say your name was?'
'Penelope Creed. Most people call me Pen, but I ought to have a man's name now.'
'Pen will do very well. If it occasions the least comment, you will say that it is spelt with two N's. You were named after that Quaker fellow.'
'Oh, that is a very good idea! What shall I call you?'
'Richard.'
'Richard who?'
'Smith—Jones—Brown.'
She was engaged in transferring her belongings from the Paisley shawl to the cloak-bag. 'You don't look like any of those. What shall I do with this shawl?'
'Leave it,' replied Sir Richard, gathering up some gleaming scraps of guinea-gold hair from the carpet, and casting them to the back of the fireplace. 'Do you know, Pen Creed, I fancy you have come into my life in the guise of Providence?'
She looked up enquiringly. 'Have I?' she said doubtfully.
'That or Disaster,' said Sir Richard. 'I shall know which when I am sober. But, to tell you the truth, I don't care a jot! En avant, mon cousin!'
It was past midday when Lady Trevor, accompanied by her reluctant husband, called at her brother's house in St James's Square. She was admitted by the porter, obviously big with news, and handed on by him to the butler. 'Tell Sir Richard that I am here,' she commanded, stepping into the Yellow Saloon.
'Sir Richard, my lady, is not at home,' said the butler, in a voice pregnant with mystery.
Louisa, who had extracted from her lord a description of Sir Richard's proceedings at Almack's on the preceding night, snorted. 'You will tell him that his sister desires to see him,' she said.
'Sir Richard, my lady, is not upon the premises,' said the butler, working up to his climax.
'Sir Richard has trained you well,' said Louisa dryly. 'But I am not to be put off so! Go and tell him that I wish to see him!'
'Sir Richard, my lady, did not sleep in his bed last night!' announced the butler.
George was surprised into indiscreet comment. 'What's that? Nonsense! He wasn't as foxed as that when I saw him!'
'As to that, my lord,' said the butler, with dignity, 'I have no information. In a word, my lord, Sir Richard has vanished.'
'Good Gad!' ejaculated George.
'Fiddle-de-dee!' said Louisa tartly. 'Sir Richard, as I suppose, is in his bed!'
'No, my lady. As I informed your ladyship, Sir Richard's bed has not been slept in.' He paused, but Louisa only stared at him. Satisfied with the impression he had made, he continued: 'The evening attire which Sir Richard was wearing yesterday was found by his man, Biddle, upon the floor of his bedroom. Sir Richard's second-best top-boots, a pair of buckskins, a blue riding-coat, his drab overcoat, and a fawn coloured beaver, have all disappeared. One is forced to the conclusion, my lady, that Sir Richard was called away unexpectedly.'
'Gone off without his valet?' George demanded in a stupefied tone.
The butler bowed. 'Precisely so, my lord.'
'Impossible!' George said, from the heart.
Louisa, who had been frowning over these tidings, said in a brisk voice: 'It is certainly very odd, but there is no doubt some perfectly reasonable explanation. Pray, are you certain that my brother left no word with any member of his household?'
'None whatsoever, my lady.'
George heaved a deep sigh, and shook his head. 'I warned you, Louisa! I said you were driving him too hard!'
'You said nothing of the sort!' snapped Louisa, annoyed with him for talking so indiscreetly before a palpably interested servant. 'To be sure, he may well have mentioned to us that he was going out of town, and we have forgotten the circumstance.'
'How can you say so?' asked George, honestly puzzled. 'Why, didn't you have it from Melissa Brandon herself that he was to call—'
'That will do, George!' said Louisa, quelling him with a look so terrible that he quailed under it. 'Tell me, Porson,' she resumed, turning again to the butler, 'has my brother gone in his postchaise, or is he driving himself?'
'None of Sir Richard's vehicles, my lady, sporting or otherwise, is missing from the stables,' said Porson, relishing the cumulative effect of his disclosures.
'He is riding, then!'
'I have ascertained from the head groom, my lady, that none of Sir Richard's horses has been abstracted. The head groom has not seen Sir Richard since yesterday morning.'
'Good Gad!' muttered George, his eyes starting with dismay at the hideous thought which presented itself to him. 'No, no, he would not do that!'
'Be quiet, George! For heaven's sake, be quiet!' Louisa cried sharply. 'Why, what nonsensical notion have you taken into your head? I am sure it is most provoking of Richard to slip off like this, but as for—I won't have you say such things! Ten to one, he has gone off to watch some odious sporting event: prize-fighting, I dare say! He will be home presently.'
'But he didn't sleep at home!' George reminded her. 'And I'm bound to say he wasn't cold stone sober when he left Almack's last night. I don't mean he was badly foxed, but you know what he's like when he's—'
'I am thankful to say that I know nothing of the kind!' retorted Louisa. 'If he was not sober, it would account for his erratic behaviour.'
'Erratic behaviour! I must say, Louisa, that is a fine way to talk when poor Ricky may be at the bottom of the river,' exclaimed George, roused to noble courage.
She changed colour, but said faintly: 'How can you be so absurd? Don't say such things, I beg of you!'
The butler coughed. 'I beg your lordship's pardon, but if I might say so, Sir Richard would hardly change his raiment for the execution of—of what I apprehend your lordship means.'
'No. No, very true! He would not, of course!' agreed George, relieved.
'Moreover, my lord, Biddle reports that Sir Richard's drawers and wardrobe have been ransacked, and various articles of clothing abstracted. Upon going to rouse Sir Richard this morning, Biddle found his room in the greatest disorder, as though Sir Richard had made his preparations for a journey in haste. Furthermore, my lord, Biddle informed me that a portmanteau and a small cloak-bag are missing from the cupboard in which they are customarily kept.'
George gave a sudden croak of laughter. 'Bolted, by Gad! Yoicks! gone awa-ayl'
'George!'
'I don't care!' said George defiantly. 'I'm devilish glad he has bolted!'
'But there was no need!' Louisa said, forgetting that Porson was in the room. 'No one was constraining him to marry—' she caught Porson's eye, and stopped short.
'I should inform your ladyship,' said Porson, apparently deaf to her indiscreet utterance, 'that there were several other Peculiar Circumstances attached to Sir Richard's disappearance.'
'Good heavens, you talk as though he has been spirited away by magic!' said Louisa impatiently. 'What circumstances, my good man?'
'If your ladyship will excuse me, I will fetch them for your inspection,' said Porson, and bowed himself out.
Husband and wife were left to stare at one another in perplexity.
'Well!' said George, not without satisfaction, 'you see now what comes of plaguing a man out of his mind!'
'I didn't! George, it is unjust of you to say so! Pray, how could I force him to offer for Melissa if he did not wish to? I am persuaded his flight has nothing whatever to do with that affair.'
'No man will bear being teased to do something he don't want to do,' said George.
'Then all I have to say is that Richard is a bigger coward than I would have believed possible! I am sure, if only he had told me frankly that he did not wish to marry Melissa I should not have said another word about it.'
'Ha!' ejaculated George, achieving a sardonic laugh.
He escaped reproof by Porson's coming back into the room, bearing certain articles which he laid carefully upon the table. In great astonishment, Lord and Lady Trevor gazed at a Paisley shawl, a crumpled cravat, and some short strands of guinea-gold hair, curling appropriately enough into a shape resembling a question-mark.
'What in the world—?' exclaimed Louisa.
'These articles, my lady, were discovered by the under-footman upon his entering the library this morning,' said Porson. 'The shawl, which neither Biddle nor myself can remember to have seen before, was lying on the floor; the cravat had been thrown into the grate; and the—er—lock of hair—was found under the shawl.'
'Well, upon my word!' said George, putting up his glass the better to inspect the articles. He pointed his glass at the cravat. 'That tells its own tale! Poor Ricky must have come in last night in a bad state. I dare say his head was aching: mine would have been, if I had drunk half the brandy he tossed off yesterday. I see it all. There he was, pledged to call on Saar this morning—no way out of it—head on fire! He tugged at his cravat, felt as though he must choke, and ruined the thing—and no matter how far gone he was, Ricky would never wear a crumpled necktie! There he was, sitting in a chair, very likely, and running his hands through his hair, in the way a man does—'
'Richard never yet disarranged his hair, and no matter how drunk he may have been, he did not pull a curl of that colour out of his own head!' interrupted Louisa. 'Moreover, it has been cut off. Anyone can see that!'
George levelled his glass at the gleaming curl. A number of emotions flitted across his rather stolid countenance. He drew a breath. 'You're quite right, Louisa,' he said. 'Well, I never would have believed it! The sly dog!'
'You need not wait, Porson!' Louisa said sharply.
'Very good, my lady. But I should perhaps inform your ladyship that the under-footman found the candles burning in the library when he entered it this morning.'
'I cannot see that it signifies in the least,' replied Louisa, waving him aside.
He withdrew. George, who was holding the curl in the palm of his hand, said: 'Well, I can't call anyone to mind with hair of this colour. To be sure, there were one or two opera-dancers, but Ricky's not at all the sort of man to want 'em to cut off their hair for him. But there's no doubt about one thing, Louisa: this curl was a keepsake.'
'Thank you, George, I had already realized that. Yet I thought I knew all the respectable women of Richard's acquaintance! One would say that kind of keepsake must have belonged to his salad days. I am sure he is much too unromantic now to cherish a lock of hair!'
'And he threw it away,' George said, shaking his head. 'You know, it's devilish sad, Louisa, upon my word it is! Threw it away, because he was on the eve of offering for that Brandon-iceberg!'
'Very affecting! And having thrown it away, he then ran away himself—not, you will admit, making any offer at all! And where did the shawl come from?' She picked it up as she spoke, and shook it out. 'Extremely creased! Now why?'
'Another keepsake,' George said. 'Crushed it in his hands, poor old Ricky—couldn't bear the recollections it conjured up—flung it away!'
'Oh, fiddle!' said Louisa, exasperated. 'Well, Porson, what is it now?'
The butler, who had come back into the room, said primly: 'The Honourable Cedric Brandon, my lady, to see Sir Richard. I thought perhaps your ladyship would wish to receive him.'
'I don't suppose he can throw the least light on this mystery, but you may as well show him in,' said Louisa. 'Depend upon it,' she added to her husband, when Porson had withdrawn himself again, 'he will have come to learn why Richard did not keep his engagement with Saar this morning. I am sure I do not know what I am to say to him!'
'If you ask me, Cedric won't blame Richard,' said George. 'They tell me he was talking pretty freely at White's yesterday. Foxed, of course. How you and your mother can want Ricky to marry into that family is what beats me!'
'We have known the Brandons all our lives,' Louisa said defensively. 'I don't pretend that—' She broke off, as the Honourable Cedric walked into the room, and stepped forward, with her hand held out. 'How do you do, Cedric? I am afraid Richard is not at home. We—think he must have been called away suddenly on urgent affairs.'
'Taken my advice, has he?' said Cedric, saluting her hand with careless grace. ' "You run, Ricky! Don't do it!" that's what I told him. Told him I'd sponge on him for the rest of his days, if he was fool enough to let himself be caught.'
'I wonder that you should talk in that vulgar way!' said Louisa. 'Of course he has not run! I dare say he will be back any moment now. It was excessively remiss of him not to have sent a note round to inform Lord Saar that he could not wait on him this morning, as he had engaged himself to do, but—'
'You've got that wrong,' interrupted Cedric. 'No engagement at all. Melissa told him to call on m'father; he didn't say he would. Wormed it out of Melissa myself an hour ago. Lord, you never saw anyone in such a rage! What's all this?' His roving eye had alighted on the relics laid out upon the table. 'A lock of hair, by Jove! Devilish pretty hair too!'
'Found in the library this morning,' said George portentously, ignoring his wife's warning frown.
'Here? Ricky?' demanded Cedric. 'You're bamming me!'
'No, it is perfectly true. We cannot understand it.'
Cedric's eyes danced. 'By all that's famous! Who'd have thought it, though? Well, that settles our affairs! Devilish inconvenient, but damme, I'm glad he's bolted! Always liked Ricky—never wanted to see him bound for perdition with the rest of us! But we're done-up now, and no mistake! The diamonds have gone.'
'What?' Louisa cried. 'Cedric, not the Brandon necklace?'
'That's it. Last sheet-anchor thrown out to the windward—gone like that!' He snapped his fingers in the air, and laughed. 'I came to tell Ricky I'd accept his offer to buy me a pair of colours, and be off to the Wars.'
'But how? Where?' gasped Louisa.
'Stolen. My mother took it to Bath with her. Never would stir without the thing, more's the pity! I wonder m'father didn't sell it years ago. Only thing he didn't sell, except Saar Court, and that'll have to go next. My mother wouldn't hear of parting with the diamonds.'
'But Cedric, how stolen? Who took it?'
'Highwaymen. My mother sent off a courier post-haste to m'father. Chaise stopped somewhere near Bath—two fellows with masks and horse-pistols—Sophia screeching like a hen—my mother swooning—outriders taken by surprise—one of 'em winged. And off went the necklace. Which is what I can't for the life of me understand.'
'How terrible! Your poor Mama! I am so sorry! It is an appalling loss!'
'Yes, but how the devil did they find the thing?' said Cedric. 'That's what I want to know.'
'But surely if they took Lady Saar's jewel-case—'
"The necklace wasn't in it. I'll lay my last shilling on that. My mother had a hiding-place for it—devilish cunning notion—always put it there when she travelled. Secret pocket behind one of the squabs.'
'Good Gad, do you mean to say someone divulged the hiding-place to the rascals?' said George.
'Looks mighty like it, don't it?'
'Who knew of it? If you can discover the traitor, you may yet get the necklace back. Are you sure of all your servants?'
'I'm sure none of them—Lord, I don't know!' Cedric said, rather hastily. 'My mother wants the Bow Street Runners set on to it, but m'father don't think it's the least use. And now here's Ricky bolted, on top of everything! The old man will go off in an apoplexy!'
'Really, Cedric, you must not talk so of your Papa!' Louisa expostulated. 'And we don't know that Richard has—has bolted! Indeed, I am sure it's no such thing!'
'He'll be a fool if he hasn't," said Cedric. 'What do you think, George?'
'I don't know,' George answered. 'It is very perplexing. I own, when I first heard of his disappearance—for you must know that he did not sleep in his bed last night, and when I saw him he was foxed—I felt the gravest alarm. But—'
'Suicide, by God!' Cedric gave a shout of laughter. 'I must tell Melissa that! Driven to death! Ricky! Oh, by all that's famous!'
'Cedric, you are quite abominable!' said Louisa roundly. 'Of course Richard has not committed suicide! He has merely gone away. I'm sure I don't know where, and if you say anything of the sort to Melissa I shall never forgive you! In fact, I beg you will tell Melissa nothing more than that Richard has been called away on an urgent matter of business.'
'What, can't I tell her about the lock of yaller hair? Now, don't be a spoil-sport, Louisa!'
'Odious creature!'
'We believe the lock of hair to be a relic of some long-forgotten affair,' said George. 'Possibly a boy-and-girl attachment. It would be gross impropriety to mention it beyond these walls.'
'If it comes to that, old fellow, what about the gross impropriety of poking and prying into Ricky's drawers?' asked Cedric cheerfully.
'We did no such thing!' Louisa cried. 'It was found upon the floor in the library!'
'Dropped? Discarded? Seems to me Ricky's been leading a double life. I'd have said myself he never troubled much about females. Won't I roast him when I see him!'
'You will do nothing of the sort. Oh dear, I wish to heaven I knew where he has gone, and what it all means!'
'I'll tell you where he's gone!' offered Cedric. 'He's gone to find the yaller-haired charmer of his youth. Not a doubt of it! Lord, I'd give a monkey to see him, though. Ricky on a romantic adventure!'
'Now you are being absurd!' said Louisa. 'If one thing is certain, it is that Richard has not one grain of romance in his disposition, while as for adventure—! I dare say he would shudder at the mere thought of it. Richard, my dear Cedric, is first, last, and always a man of fashion, and he will never do anything unbefitting a Corinthian. You may take my word for that!' |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 4 | The man of fashion, at that precise moment, was sleeping heavily in one corner of a huge green-and-gold Accommodation coach, swaying and rocking on its ponderous way to Bristol. The hour was two in the afternoon, the locality Calcot Green, west of Reading and the dreams troubling the repose of the man of fashion were extremely uneasy. He had endured some waking moments, when the coach had stopped with a lurch and a heave to take up or to set down passengers, to change horses, or to wait while a laggardly pike-keeper opened a gate upon the road. These moments had seemed to him more fraught with nightmare even than his dreams. His head was aching, his eyeballs seemed to be on fire, and a phantasmagoria of strange, unwelcome faces swam before his outraged vision. He had shut his eyes again with a groan, preferring his dreams to reality, but when the coach stopped at Calcot Green to put down a stout woman with a tendency to asthma, sleep finally deserted him, and he opened his eyes, blinked at the face of a precise-looking man in a suit of neat black, seated opposite him, ejaculated: 'Oh, my God!' and sat up.
'Is your head very bad?' asked a solicitous and vaguely familiar voice in his ear.
He turned his head, and encountered the enquiring gaze of Miss Penelope Creed. He looked at her in silence for a few moments; then he said: 'I remember. Stagecoach—Bristol. Why, oh why, did I touch the brandy?'
An admonitory pinch made him recollect his surroundings. He found that there were three other persons in the coach, seated opposite to him, and that all were regarding him with interest. The precise-looking man, whom he judged to be an attorney's clerk, was frankly disapproving; a woman in a poke-bonnet and a paduasoy shawl nodded to him in a motherly style, and said that he was like her second boy, who could not abide the rocking of the coach either; and a large man beside her, whom he took to be her husband, corroborated this statement by enunciating in a deep voice: 'That's right!'
Instinct took Sir Richard's hand to his cravat; his fingers told him that it was considerably crumpled, like the tails of his blue coat. His curly-brimmed beaver seemed to add to the discomfort of his aching head; he took it off, and clasped his head in his hands, trying to throw off the lingering wisps of sleep. 'Good God!' he said thickly. 'Where are we?'
'Well, I am not quite sure, but we have passed Reading,' replied Pen, rather anxiously surveying him.
'Calcot Green, that's where we are,' volunteered the large man. 'Stopped to set down someone. They ain't a-worriting theirselves over the time-bill, that's plain. I dare say the coachman's stepped down for a drink.'
'Ah, well!' said his wife tolerantly. 'It'll be thirsty work, setting up on the box in the sun like he has to.'
"That's right,' agreed the large man.
'If the Company was to hear of it he would be turned off, and very rightly!' said the clerk, sniffing. 'The behaviour of these stage-coachmen is becoming a scandal.'
'I'm sure there's no call for people to get nasty if a man falls behind his time-bill a little,' said the woman. 'Live and let live, that's what I say.'
Her husband assented to this in his usual fashion. The coach lurched forward again, and Pen said, under cover of the noise of the wheels and the horses' hooves: 'You kept on telling me that you were drunk, and now I see that you were. I was afraid you would regret coming with me.'
Sir Richard raised his head from his hands. 'Drunk I most undoubtedly must have been, but I regret nothing except the brandy. When does this appalling vehicle reach Bristol?'
'It isn't one of the fast coaches, you know. They don't engage to cover much above eight miles an hour. I think we ought to be in Bristol by eleven o'clock. We seem to stop such a number of times, though. Do you mind very much?'
He looked down at her. 'Do you?'
'To tell you the truth,' she confided, 'not a bit! I am enjoying myself hugely. Only I don't want you to be made uncomfortable all for my sake. I quite see that you are sadly out-of-place in a stagecoach.'
'My dear child, you had nothing whatever to do with my present discomfort, believe me. As for my being out-of-place, what, pray, are you?'
The dimples peeped. 'Oh, I am only a scrubby schoolboy, after all!'
'Did I say that?' She nodded. 'Well, so you are,' said Sir Richard, looking her over critically. 'Except for—Did I tie that cravat? Yes, I thought I must have. What in the world have you got there?'
'An apple,' replied Pen, showing it to him. "The fat woman who got out just now gave it to me.'
'You are not going to sit there munching it, are you?' demanded Sir Richard.
'Yes, I am. Why shouldn't I? Would you like a bit of it?'
'I should not!' said Sir Richard.
'Well, I am excessively hungry. That was the one thing we forgot.'
'What was?'
'Food,' said Pen, digging her teeth into the apple. 'We ought to have provided ourselves with a basket of things to eat on the journey. I forgot that the stage doesn't stop at posting-houses, like the mail-coaches. At least, I didn't forget exactly, because I never knew it.'
'This must be looked to,' said Sir Richard. 'If you are hungry, you must undoubtedly be fed. What are you proposing to do with the core of that apple?'
'Eat it,' said Pen.
'Repellent brat!' said Sir Richard, with a strong shudder.
He leaned back in his corner, but a tug at his sleeve made him incline his head towards his companion.
'I told these people that you were my tutor,' whispered Pen.
'Of course, a young gentleman in his tutor's charge would be travelling in the common stage,' said Sir Richard, resigning himself to the role of usher.
At the next stage, which was Woolhampton, he roused himself from the languor which threatened to possess him, alighted from the coach, and showed unexpected competence in procuring from the modest inn a very tolerable cold meal for his charge. The coach awaited his pleasure, and the attorney's clerk, whose sharp eyes had seen Sir Richard's hand go from his pocket to the coachman's ready palm, muttered darkly of bribery and corruption on the King's Highway.
'Have some chicken,' said Sir Richard amiably.
The clerk refused this invitation with every evidence of contempt, but there were several other passengers, notably a small boy with adenoids, who were perfectly ready to share the contents of the basket on Pen's knees.
Sir Richard had good reason to know that Miss Creed's disposition was extremely confiding; during the long day's journey he discovered that she was friendly to a fault. She observed all the passengers with a bright and wholly unselfconscious gaze; conversed even with the clerk; and showed an alarming tendency to become the life and soul of the party. Questioned about herself, and her destination, she wove, zestfully, an entirely mendacious story, which she embroidered from time to time with outrageous details. Sir Richard was ruthlessly applied to for corroboration, and, entering into the spirit of the adventure, added a few extempore details himself. Pen seemed pleased with these, but was plainly disappointed at his refusal to join her in keeping the small boy with adenoids amused.
He leaned back in his corner, lazily enjoying Miss Creed's flights into the realms of fancy, and wondering what his mother and sister would think if they knew that he was travelling to an unknown destination, by stagecoach, accompanied by a young lady as unembarrassed by this circumstance as by her male attire. A laugh shook him, as he pictured Louisa's face. His head had ceased aching, but although the detachment fostered by brandy had left him, he still retained a feeling of delightful irresponsibility. Sober, he would certainly not have set forth on this absurd journey, but having done so, drunk, he was perfectly willing to continue it. He was, moreover, curious to learn more of Pen's history. Some farrago she had told him last night: his recollection of it was a trifle hazy, but there had surely been something about an aunt, and a cousin with a face like a fish.
He turned his head slightly on the dingy squabs of the coach, and watched, from under drooping eyelids, the animated little face beside him. Miss Creed was listening, apparently keenly interested, to a long and involved recital of the illness which had lately prostrated the motherly woman's youngest-born. She shook her head over the folly of the apothecary, nodded wisely at the efficiency of an age-old nostrum compounded of strange herbs, and was on the point of capping this recipe with one in use in her own family when Sir Richard's foot found hers, and trod on it.
It was certainly time to check Miss Creed. The motherly woman stared at her, and said that it was queer-and-all to meet a young gentleman so knowledgeable.
'My mother,' said Pen, blushing, 'has been an invalid for many years.'
Everyone looked solicitous, and a desiccated female in the far corner of the coach said that no one could tell her anything about illness.
This remark had the effect of diverting attention from Pen, and as the triumphant lady plunged into the history of her sufferings, she sat back beside Sir Richard, directing up at him a look quite as mischievous as it was apologetic.
The lawyer's clerk, who had not yet forgiven Sir Richard for bribing the coachman, said something about the license allowed to young persons in these days. He contrasted it unfavourably with his own upbringing, and said that if he had a son he would not pamper him by giving him a tutor, but would send him to school. Pen said meekly that Mr Brown was very strict, and Sir Richard, correctly identifying Mr Brown with himself, lent colour to her assertion by telling her sternly not to chatter.
The motherly woman said that she was sure the young gentleman brightened them all up, and for her part she did not hold with people being harsh with children.
"That's right," agreed her spouse. 'I never wanted to break any of my young 'uns' spirits: I like to see 'em up-and-coming.'
Several of the passengers looked reproachfully at Sir Richard, and, that no doubt of his severity might linger in their minds, Pen subsided into crushed silence, folding her hands on her knees, and casting down her eyes.
Sir Richard saw that he would figure for the rest of the journey as an oppressor, and mentally rehearsed a speech which was destined for Miss Creed's sole edification.
She disarmed him by falling asleep with her cheek against his shoulder. She slept between one stage and the next, and when roused by the coach's halting with its usual lurch, opened her eyes, smiled drowsily up at Sir Richard and murmured: 'I'm glad you came. Are you glad you came?'
'Very. Wake up!' said Sir Richard, wondering what more imprudent remarks might be hovering on her tongue.
She yawned, and straightened herself. An altercation seemed to be in progress between the guard and someone standing in the inn-yard. A farmer, who had boarded the coach at Calne, and was seated beside Pen, said that he thought the trouble was that the would-be passenger was not upon the way-bill.
'Well, he cannot come inside, that is certain!' said the thin woman. 'It is shocking, the way one is crowded already!'
'Where are we?' enquired Pea.
'Chippenham,' responded the farmer. 'That's where the Bath road goes off, see?"
She sat forward to look out of the window. 'Chippenham already? Oh yes, so it is! I know it well.'
Sir Richard cocked an amused eye at her. 'Already?' he murmured.
'Well, I have been asleep, so it seems soon to me. Are you very weary, sir?'
'By no means. I am becoming entirely resigned.'
The new passenger, having apparently settled matters with the guard, at this moment pulled open the door, and tried to climb up into the coach. He was a small, spare man, in a catskin waistcoat, and jean-pantaloons. He had a sharp face, with a pair of twinkling, lashless eyes set deep under sandy brows. His proposed entrance into the coach was resolutely opposed. The thin woman cried out that there was no room; the lawyer's clerk said that the way the Company over-loaded its vehicles was a scandal; and the farmer recommended the newcomer to climb on to the roof.
'There ain't an inch of room up there,' protested the stranger. 'Lord, I don't take up much space! Squeeze up, coves!'
'Full-up! Try the boot!' said the farmer.
'Cast your winkers over me, cull: I don't take up no more room than what a bodkin would!' pleaded the stranger. 'Besides, there's a set of flash young coves on the roof. I'd be mortal afraid to sit with 'em, so I would!'
Sir Richard, casting an experienced eye over the man, mentally wrote him down as one probably better known to the Bow Street Runners than to himself. He was not surprised, however, to hear Miss Creed offering to squeeze up to make room, for he had, by this time, formed a very fair estimate of his charge's warmheartedness.
Pen, edging close to Sir Richard, coaxed the farmer to see for himself that there was room enough for one more passenger. The man in the catskin waistcoat grinned at her, and hopped into the coach. 'Dang me if I didn't think you was a flash cull too!' he said, squeezing himself into the vacant place. 'I'm obliged to ye, young shaver. When coves do Jimmy Yarde a service he don't forget it neither.'
The lawyer, who seemed to have much the same opinion of Mr Yarde as that held by Sir Richard, sniffed, and folded his hands tightly on the box which he held on his knees.
'Lord bless you!' said Mr Yarde, observing this gesture with a tolerant smile, I ain't no boman prig!'
'What's a boman prig?' asked Pen innocently.
'There, now! If you ain't a werry suckling!' said Mr Yarde, almost disconcerted. 'A boman prig, young gentleman, is what I trust you'll never be. It's a cove as ends up in Rumbo—ah, and likely on the Nubbing Cheat afore he's much older!'
Much intrigued, Pen demanded a translation of these strange terms. Sir Richard, having pondered and discarded the notion of commanding her to exchange places with him, lay back and listened with lazy enjoyment to her initiation into the mysteries of thieves' cant.
A party of young gentlemen, who had been spectators of a cock-fight held in the district, had been taken up at Chippenham, and had crowded on to the roof. From the sounds preceding thence, it seemed certain that they had been refreshing themselves liberally. There was a good deal of shouting, some singing, and much drumming with heels upon the roof. The motherly woman and the thin spinster began to look alarmed, and the lawyer's clerk said that the behaviour of modern young men was disgraceful. Pen was too deeply engaged in conversation with Jimmy Yarde to pay much heed to the commotion, but when, after the coach had rumbled on for another five miles, the pace was suddenly accelerated, and the top-heavy vehicle bounced over ruts and pot-holes, and swung perilously first to one side and then to the other, she broke off her enthralling discourse, and looked enquiringly at Sir Richard.
A violent lurch flung her into his arms. He restored her to her own seat, saying dryly: 'More adventure for you. I hope you are enjoying it?'
'But what is happening?'
'I apprehend that one of the would-be sprigs of fashion above has taken it into his head to tool the coach,' he replied.
'Lord ha' mercy!' exclaimed the motherly woman. 'Do you mean that one of they pesky, drunken lads is a-driving of us, sir?'
'So I should suppose, ma'am.'
The spinster uttered a faint shriek. 'Good God, what will become of us?'
'We shall end, I imagine, in the ditch,' said Sir Richard, with unruffled calm.
Babel at once broke forth, the spinster demanding to be let out at once, the motherly woman trying to attract the coachman's notice by hammering against the roof with her sunshade, the farmer sticking his head out of the window to shout threats and abuse, Jimmy Yarde laughing, and the lawyer's clerk angrily demanding of Sir Richard why he did not do something?
'What would you wish me to do?' asked Sir Richard, steadying Pen with a comfortingly strong arm.
'Stop the coach! Oh, sir, pray stop it!' begged the motherly woman.
'Bless your heart, ma'am, it'll stop of its own this gait!' grinned Jimmy Yarde.
Hardly had he spoken than a particularly sharp bend in the road proved to be too much for the amateur coachman's skill. He took the corner too wide, the near-hind wheels mounted a slight bank, and skidded down the farther side into a deep ditch, and everyone inside the vehicle was flung rudely over. There were screams from the women, oaths from the farmer, the cracking noise of split wood, and the shatter of broken glass. The coach lay at a crazy angle with sprigs of thorn-hedge thrusting in through the broken windows.
Pen, whose face was smothered in the many capes of Sir Richard's drab driving-coat, gasped, and struggled to free herself from a hold which had suddenly clamped her to Sir Richard's side. He relaxed it, saying: 'Hurt, Pen?'
'No, not in the least! Thank you so very much for holding me! Are you hurt?'
A splinter of glass had cut his cheek slightly, but since he had been holding on to the leather arm-rest hanging in the corner of the coach, he had not been thrown, like everyone else, off his seat. 'No, only annoyed,' he replied. 'My good woman, this is neither the time nor the place for indulging in a fit of the vapours!'
This acid rider was addressed to the spinster, who, finding herself pitchforked on top of the lawyer's clerk, had gone off into strong hysterics.
'Here, let me get my dabblers on to that there door!' said Jimmy Yarde, hoisting himself up by seizing the opposite arm-rest. 'Dang me if next time I travel in a rattler I don't ride on the roof, flash-culls or no!'
The coach not having collapsed quite on to its side, but being supported by the bank and the hedge bordering the ditch, it was not difficult to force open the door, or to climb out through it. The spinster had indeed to be lifted out, since she had stiffened all over, and would do nothing but scream and drum her heels, but Pen scrambled out with an agility which scorned helping hands, and the motherly woman said that provided every gentleman would turn his back upon her she would engage to get out by herself too.
It was now considerably after nine o'clock, but although the sun had gone, the summer sky was still light, and the air warm. The travellers found themselves on a deserted stretch of road, a couple of miles short of the little town of Wroxhall, and rather more than thirty miles from Bristol. The most cursory inspection of the coach was enough to convince them that it would need extensive repairs before being able to take the road again; and Sir Richard, who had gone immediately to the horses, returned to Pen's side in a few moments with the news that one of the wheelers had badly strained a tendon. He had been right in thinking that the reins had been handed over to one of the outside passengers. To tool the coach was a common enough pastime amongst young men who aspired to be whips, but that any paid coachman could have been foolish enough to relinquish his seat to an amateur far gone in drink was incomprehensible, until the coachman's own condition had been realized.
Pen, who was sitting on Sir Richard's portmanteau, received the news of complete breakdown with perfect equanimity, but all the other inside passengers burst into vociferous complaint, and besieged the guard with demands to be instantly conveyed to Bristol, by means unspecified. Between his indignation at his colleague's gross misconduct, and his exasperation at being shouted at by six or seven persons at once, the unfortunate man was for some time incapable of collecting his wits, but presently it was suggested that if the travellers would only be patient, he would ride back on one of the leaders to Chippenham, and there try to procure some sort of a vehicle to convey them to Wroxhall, where they would be obliged to remain until the next Accommodation coach to Bristol picked them up there early on the following morning.
Several persons decided to set forward on foot for Wroxhall at once, but the spinster was still having hysterics, the motherly woman said that her corns would not permit of her tramping two miles, and the lawyer's clerk held to it that he had a right to be conveyed to Bristol that night. There was a marked tendency in one or two persons to turn to Sir Richard, as being plainly a man accustomed to command. This tendency had the effect of making Sir Richard, not in the least gratified, walk over to Pen's side, and say languidly, but with decision: "This, I fancy, is where we part company with our fellow-travellers.'
'Yes, do let us!' assented Pen blithely. 'You know, I have been thinking, and I have a much better scheme now. We won't go to Bristol at all!'
'This is very sudden,' said Sir Richard. 'Do I understand you to mean that you have made up your mind to return to London?'
'No, no, of course not! Only now that we have broken down I think it would be silly to wait for another coach, because very likely we should be overtaken by my aunt. And I never really wanted to go to Bristol, after all.'
'In that case, it seems perhaps a pity that we came so far upon the road to it,' said Sir Richard.
Her eyes twinkled. 'Stupid! I mean, my home is not in Bristol, but near to it, and I think it would be much better, besides being like a real adventure, to walk the rest of the way.'
'Where is your home?' demanded Sir Richard.
'Well, it is near Queen Charlton, not far from Keynsham, you know.'
'I don't,' said Sir Richard. 'This is your country, not mine. How far, in your judgment, is Queen Charlton from where we now are?'
'I'm not entirely sure,' replied Pen cautiously. 'But I shouldn't think it could be above fifteen, or, at the most twenty miles, going 'cross country.'
'Are you proposing to walk twenty miles?' said Sir Richard.
'Well, I dare say it is not as much. As the crow flies, I expect it is only about ten miles off.'
'You are not a crow,' said Sir Richard dampingly. 'Nor, I may add, am I. Get up from that portmanteau!'
She rose obediently. 'I think I could quite well walk twenty miles. Not all at once, of course. What are we going to do?'
'We are going to retrace our steps along the road until we come to an inn,' replied Sir Richard. 'As I remember, there was one, about a couple of miles back. Nothing would induce me to make one of this afflictive coach-party!'
'I must own, I am a little tired of them myself,' admitted Pen. 'Only I won't go to a posting-house!'
'Make yourself easy on that score!' said Sir Richard grimly. 'No respectable posting-house would open its door to us in this guise.'
This made Pen giggle. She put forward no further opposition, but picked up the cloak-bag, and set out beside Sir Richard in the direction of Chippenham.
None of the coach-passengers noticed their departure, since all were fully occupied, either in reviling the coachman, or in planning their immediate movements. The bend in the road soon shut them off from sight of the coach, and Sir Richard then said: 'And now you may give me that cloak-bag.'
'Well, I won't,' said Pen, holding on to it firmly. 'It is not at all heavy, and you have your portmanteau to carry already. Besides, I feel more like a man every moment. What shall we do when we reach the inn?'
'Order supper.'
'Yes, and after that?'
'Go to bed.'
Pen considered this. 'You don't think we should set forward on our journey at once?'
'Certainly not. We shall go to bed like Christians, and in the morning we shall hire a conveyance to carry us to Queen Charlton. A private conveyance,' he added.
'But—'
'Pen Creed,' said Sir Richard calmly, 'you cast me for the role of bear-leader, and I accepted it. You drew a revolting picture of me which led everyone in that coach to regard me in the light of a persecutor of youth. Now you are reaping the harvest of your own sowing.'
She laughed. 'Are you going to persecute me?'
'Horribly!' said Sir Richard.
She tucked a confiding hand in his arm, and gave a little skip. 'Very well, I will do as you tell me. I'm very glad I met you: we are having a splendid adventure, are we not?'
Sir Richard's lips twitched. Suddenly he burst out laughing, standing still in the middle of the road, while Pen doubtfully surveyed him.
'But what is the matter with you?' she asked.
'Never mind!' he said, his voice still unsteady with mirth. 'Of course we are having a splendid adventure!'
'Well, I think we are,' she said, stepping out beside him again. 'Piers will be so surprised when he sees me!'
'I should think he would be,' agreed Sir Richard. 'You are quite sure that you don't regret coining in search of him, I suppose?'
'Oh yes, quite! Why, Piers is my oldest friend! Didn't I tell you that we made a vow to be married?'
'I have some recollection of your doing so,' he admitted. 'But I also recollect that you said you hadn't seen him for five years.'
'No, that is true, but it doesn't signify in the least, I assure you.'
'I see,' said Sir Richard, keeping his inevitable reflections to himself.
They had not more than two miles to go before they reached the inn Sir Richard had seen from the window of the coach. It was a very small hostelry, with a weather-beaten sign creaking on its chains, a thatched roof, and only one parlour, besides the common taproom.
The landlord, upon hearing of the breakdown of the stagecoach, accepted the travellers' unconventional arrival without surprise. It was growing dark by this time, and it was not until Sir Richard had stepped into the inn, and stood in the light of a hanging lamp, that the landlord was able to obtain a clear view of him. Sir Richard had chosen for the journey a plain coat and serviceable breeches, but the cut of the blue cloth, the high polish on his top-boots, the very style of his cravat, and the superfluity of capes on his drab overcoat all proclaimed so unmistakably the gentleman of fashion that the landlord was obviously taken aback, and looked from him to Pen with considerable suspicion.
'I shall require a bedroom for myself, and another for my nephew,' said Sir Richard. 'Also some supper.'
'Yes, sir. Did your honour say you was travelling on the Bristol-stage?' asked the landlord incredulously.
'Yes,' said Sir Richard raising his brows. 'I did say so. Have you any objection?'
'Oh no, sir! no, I'm sure!' replied the landlord hastily. 'Your honour said supper! I'm afraid we—we aren't in the habit of entertaining the Quality, but if your honour would condescend to a dish of ham and eggs, or maybe a slice of cold pork, I'll see to it on the instant!'
Sir Richard having graciously approved the ham and eggs, the landlord bowed him into the stuffy little parlour, and promised to have the only two guest-chambers the inn possessed immediately prepared. Pen, directing a conspiratorial look at Sir Richard, elected to follow the portmanteau and the cloak-bag upstairs. When she reappeared a slatternly maidservant had spread supper on the table in the parlour, and Sir Richard had succeeded in forcing open two of its tiny windows. He turned, as Pen came in, and asked: 'What in heaven's name have you been doing all this time? I began to think you had deserted me.'
'Desert you! Of course I wouldn't do anything so silly! The thing was, I could see the landlord had noticed your clothes, so I thought of a famous tale to tell him. That's why I went off with him. I knew he would try to discover from me why you were travelling on the stagecoach.'
'And did he?'
'Yes, and I told him that you had had reverses on 'Change and had fallen on evil times,' said Pen, drawing up her chair to the table.
'Oh!' said Sir Richard. 'Was he satisfied with that?'
'Perfectly. He said he was very sorry. And then he asked where we were bound for. I said, for Bristol, because all the family had lost its money, and so I had had to be taken away from school.'
'You have the most fertile imagination of anyone of my acquaintance,' said Sir Richard. 'May I ask what school you have been gracing?'
'Harrow. Afterwards I wished I had said Eton, because my cousin Geoffrey is at Harrow, and 1 don't like him. I wouldn't go to his school.'
'I suppose it is too late to change the school now,' Sir Richard said, in a regretful tone.
She looked up quickly, her fascinating smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. 'You are laughing at me,'
'Yes,' admitted Sir Richard. 'Do you mind?'
'Oh no, not a bit! No one laughs in my aunt's house. I like it.'
'I wish,' said Sir Richard, 'you would tell me more about this aunt of yours. Is she your guardian?'
'No, but I have had to live with her ever since my father died. I have no real guardian, but I have two trustees. On account of my fortune, you understand.'
'Of course, yes: I was forgetting your fortune. Who are your trustees?'
'Well, one is my uncle Griffin—Aunt Almeria's husband, you know—but he doesn't signify, because he does just what Aunt tells him. The other is my father's lawyer, and he doesn't signify either.'
'For the same reason?'
'I don't know, but I shouldn't wonder at it in the least. Everyone is afraid of Aunt Almeria. Even I am, a little. That's why I ran away.'
'Is she unkind to you?'
'N-no. At least, she doesn't ill-treat me, but she is the kind of woman who always gets her own way. Do you know?'
'I know,' Sir Richard said.
'She talks,' explained Pen. 'And when she is displeased with one, I must say that it is very uncomfortable. But one should always be just, and I do not blame her for being so set on my marrying Fred. They are not very rich, you see, and of course Aunt would like Fred to have all my fortune. In fact, I am very sorry to be so disobliging, particularly as I have lived with the Griffins for nearly five years. But, to tell you the truth, I didn't in the least want to, and as for marrying Fred, I could not! Only when I suggested to Aunt Almeria that I would much prefer to give my fortune to Fred, and not marry him, she flew into a passion, and said I was heartless and shameless, and cried, and talked about nourishing vipers in her bosom. I thought that was unjust of her, because it was a very handsome offer, don't you agree?'
'Very,' said Sir Richard. 'But perhaps a trifle—shall we say, crude?'
'Oh!' Pen digested this. 'You mean that she did not like my not pretending that Fred was in love with me?'
'I think it just possible,' said Sir Richard gravely.
'Well, I am sorry if I wounded her feelings, but truly I don't think she has the least sensibility. I only said what I thought. But it put her in such a rage that there was nothing for it but to escape. So I did.'
'Were you locked in your room?' enquired Sir Richard.
'Oh no! I daresay I should have been if Aunt had guessed what I meant to do, but she would never think of such a thing.'
'Then—forgive my curiosity!—why did you climb out of the window?' asked Sir Richard.
'Oh, that was on account of Pug!' replied Pen sunnily.
'Pug?'
'Yes, a horrid little creature! He sleeps in a basket in the hall, and he always yaps if he thinks one is going out. That would have awakened Aunt Almeria. There was nothing else I could do.'
Sir Richard regarded her with a lurking smile. 'Naturally not. Do you know, Pen, I owe you a debt of gratitude?'
'Oh?' she said, pleased, but doubtful. 'Why?'
'I thought I knew your sex. I was wrong.'
'Oh!' she said again. 'Do you mean that I don't behave as a delicately bred female should?'
'That is one way of putting it, certainly.'
'It is the way Aunt Almeria puts it.'
'She would, of course.'
'I am afraid,' confessed Pen, 'that I am not very well-behaved. Aunt says that I had a lamentable upbringing, because my father treated me as though I had been a boy. I ought to have been, you understand.'
'I cannot agree with you,' said Sir Richard. 'As a boy you would have been in no way remarkable; as a female, believe me, you are unique.'
She flushed to the roots of her hair. 'I think that is a compliment.'
'It is,' Sir Richard said, amused.
'Well, I wasn't sure, because I am not out yet, and I do not know any men except my uncle and Fred, and they don't pay compliments. That is to say, not like that.' She looked up rather shyly, but chancing to catch sight of someone through the window, suddenly exclaimed: 'Why, there's Mr Yarde!'
'Mr who?' asked Sir Richard, turning his head.
'You can't see him now: he has gone past the window. You must remember Mr Yarde, sir! He was the odd little man who got into the coach at Chippenham, and used such queer words that I could not perfectly understand him. Do you suppose he can be coming to this inn?'
'I sincerely trust not!' said Sir Richard. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 5 | His trust was soon seen to have been misplaced, for after a few minutes the landlord came into the room, to ask apologetically whether the noble gentleman would object to giving up one of his rooms to another traveller. 'I told him as how your honour had bespoke both bedchambers, but he is very wishful to get a lodging, sir, so I told him as how I would ask your honour if, maybe, the young gentleman could share your honour's chamber—there being two beds, sir.'
Sir Richard, meeting Miss Creed's eye for one pregnant moment, saw that she was struggling with a strong desire to burst out laughing. His own lips quivered, but before he could answer the landlord, the sharp face of Mr Jimmy Yarde peered over that worthy's shoulder.
Upon recognizing the occupants of the parlour, Mr Yarde seemed to be momentarily taken aback. He recovered himself quickly, however, to thrust his way into the parlour with a very fair assumption of delight at encountering two persons already known to him. 'Well, if it ain't my young chub!' he exclaimed. 'Dang me if I didn't think the pair of you had loped off to Wroxhall!'
'No,' said Sir Richard. 'It appeared to me that Wroxhall would be over-full of travellers tonight.'
'Ay, you're a damned knowing one, ain't you? Knowed it the instant I clapped my glaziers on you. And right you are! Says I to myself, "Wroxhall's no place for you, Jimmy, my boy!"'
'Was the thin woman still having the vapours?' asked Pen.
'Lordy, young chub, she were stretched out as stiff as a corpse when I loped off, and no one knowing what to do to bring her to her senses. Ah, and mighty peevy I thought myself, to hit on the notion of coming to this ken—not knowing as you had bespoke all the rooms afore me.'
His bright face shifted to Sir Richard's unpromising countenance. 'Unfortunate!' said Sir Richard politely.
'Ah, now!' wheedled Mr Yarde, 'you wouldn't go for to out-jockey Jimmy Yarde! Lordy, it's all of eleven o'clock, and the light gone. What's to stop your doubling up with the young shaver?'
'If your honour would condescend to allow the young gentleman to sleep in the spare bed in your honour's chamber?' interpolated the landlord in an ingratiating tone.
'No,' said Sir Richard. 'I am an extremely light sleeper, and my nephew snores.' Ignoring an indignant gasp from Pen, he turned to Mr Yarde. 'Do you snore?' he asked.
Jimmy grinned. 'Not me! I sleep like a baby, so help me!'
'Then you,' said Sir Richard, 'may share my room.'
'Done!' said Jimmy promptly. 'Spoke like a rare gager, guv'nor, which I knew you was. Damme, if I don't drain a clank to your very good health!'
Resigning himself to the inevitable, Sir Richard nodded to the landlord, and bade Jimmy draw up a chair.
Not having boarded the stagecoach when Pen had announced Sir Richard to be her tutor, Jimmy apparently accepted her new relationship without question. He spoke of her to Sir Richard as 'your nevvy,' drank both their healths in gin-and-water bespoken by Sir Richard, and seemed to be inclined to make a night of it. He became rather loquacious over his second glass of daffy, and made several mysterious references to Files, and those engaged on the Dub-lay, and the Kidd. Various embittered strictures on Flash Culls led Sir Richard to infer that he had lately been working in partnership with persons above his own social standing, and did not mean to repeat the experience.
Pen sat drinking it all in, with her eyes growing rounder and rounder, until Sir Richard said that it was time she was in bed. He escorted her out of the parlour to the foot of the stairs, where she whispered to him in the tone of one who has made a great discovery: 'Dear sir, I don't believe he is a respectable person!'
'No,' said Sir Richard. 'I don't believe it either.'
'But is he a thief?' asked Pen, shocked.
'I should think undoubtedly. Which is why you will lock your door, my child. Is it understood?'
'Yes, but are you sure you will be safe? It would be dreadful if he were to cut your throat in the night!'
'It would indeed,' Sir Richard agreed. 'But I can assure you he won't. You may take this for me, if you will, and keep it till the morning.'
He put his heavy purse into her hand. She nodded. 'Yes, I will. You will take great care, will you not?'
'I promise,' he said, smiling. 'Be off now, and don't tease yourself over my safety!'
He went back to the parlour, where Jimmy Yarde awaited him. Being called upon to join Mr Yarde in a glass of daffy, he raised not the slightest objection, although he very soon suspected Jimmy of trying to drink him under the table. As he refilled the glasses for the third time, he said apologetically: 'Perhaps I ought to warn you that I am accounted to have a reasonably strong head. I should not like you to waste your time, Mr Yarde.'
Jimmy was not at all abashed. He grinned, and said: 'Ah, I said you was a peevy cull! Knowed it as soon as I clapped my daylights on to you. You learned to drink Blue Ruin in Cribb's parlour!'
'Quite right,' said Sir Richard.
'Oh, I knowed it, bless your heart! "That there gentry-cove would peel remarkably well," I says to myself. "And a handy bunch of fives he's got." Never you fret, guv'nor: Jimmy Yarde's no green 'un. What snabbles me, though, is how you come to be travelling in the common rumble.'
Sir Richard gave a soft laugh suddenly. 'You see, I have lost all my money,' he said.
'Lost all your money?' repeated Jimmy, astonished.
'On 'Change,' added Sir Richard.
The light, sharp eyes flickered over his elegant person. 'Ah, you're trying to gammon me! What's the lay?'
'None at all.'
'Dang me if I ever met such a cursed rum touch!' A suspicion crossed his mind. 'You ain't killed your man, guv'nor?'
'No. Have you?'
Jimmy looked quite alarmed. 'Not me, guv'nor, not me! I don't hold with violence, any gait.'
Sir Richard helped himself to a leisurely pinch of snuff. 'Just the Knuckle, eh?'
Jimmy gave a start, and looked at him with uneasy respect. 'What would the likes of you know about the Knuckle?'
'Not very much, admittedly. I believe it means the filching of watches, snuff-boxes, and such-like from the pockets of the unsuspecting.'
'Here!' said Jimmy, looking very hard at him across the table, 'you don't work the Drop, do you?'
Sir Richard shook his head.
'You ain't a Picker-up, or p'raps a Kidd?'
'No,' said Sir Richard. 'I am quite honest—what you, I fancy, call a Flat.'
'I don't!' Jimmy said emphatically. 'I never met a flat what was so unaccountable knowing as what you are, guv'nor; and what's more I hope I don't meet one again!'
He watched Sir Richard rise to his feet, and kindle his bedroom candle at the guttering one on the table. He was frowning in a puzzled way, clearly uncertain in his mind. 'Going to bed, guv'nor?'
Sir Richard glanced down at him. 'Yes. I did warn you that I am a shockingly light sleeper, did I not?'
'Lord, you ain't got no need to fear me!'
'I am quite sure I have not,' smiled Sir Richard.
When Jimmy Yarde, an hour later, softly tiptoed into the low-pitched bedchamber above the parlour, Sir Richard lay to all appearances peacefully asleep. Jimmy edged close to the bed, and stood watching him, and listening to his even breathing.
'Don't drop hot tallow on me, I beg!' said Sir Richard, not opening his eyes.
Jimmy Yarde jumped, and swore.
'Quite so,' said Sir Richard.
Jimmy Yarde cast him a look of venomous dislike, and in silence undressed, and got into the neighbouring bed.
He awoke at an early hour, to hear roosters crowing from farm to farm in the distance. The sun was up, but the day was still misty, and the air very, fresh. The bed creaked under him as he sat up, but it did not rouse Sir Richard. Jimmy Yarde slid out of it cautiously, and dressed himself. On the dimity-covered table by the window, Sir Richard's gold quizzing-glass and snuff-box lay, carelessly discarded. Jimmy looked wistfully at him. He was something of a connoisseur in snuff-boxes, and his fingers itched to slip this one into his pocket. He glanced uncertainly towards the bed. Sir Richard sighed in his sleep. His coat hung over a chair within Jimmy's reach. Keeping his eyes on Sir Richard, Jimmy felt in its pockets. Nothing but a handkerchief rewarded his search. But Sir Richard had given no sign of returning consciousness. Jimmy picked up the snuff-box, and inspected it. Still no movement from the bed. Emboldened, Jimmy dropped it into his capacious pocket. The quizzing-glass swiftly followed it. Jimmy went stealthily towards the door. As he reached it, a yawn made him halt in his tracks, and spin round.
Sir Richard stretched, and yawned again. 'You're up early, my friend,' he remarked.
'That's right,' said Jimmy, anxious to be gone before his theft could be discovered. 'I'm not one for lying abed on a fine summer's morning. I'll get a breath of air before I have my breakfast. Daresay we'll meet downstairs, eh, guv'nor?'
'I dare say we shall,' agreed Sir Richard. 'But in case we don't, I'll relieve you of my snuff-box and my eyeglass now.'
Exasperated, Jimmy let fall the modest bundle which contained his nightgear. 'Dang me, if I ever met such a leery cove in all my puff!' he said. 'You never saw me lift that lobb!'
'I warned you that I was a shockingly light sleeper,' said Sir Richard.
'Bubbled by a gudgeon!' said Jimmy disgustedly, handing over the booty. 'Here you are: there's no need for you to go calling in any harman, eh?'
'None at all,' replied Sir Richard.
'Damme, you're a blood after my own fancy, guv'nor! No hard feeling?'
'Not the least in the world.'
'I wish I knew what your lay might be,' Jimmy said wistfully, and departed, shaking his head over the problem.
Downstairs he found Pen Creed, who had also awakened early. She bade him a cheerful good-morning, and said that she had been out, and was of the opinion that it was going to be a hot day. When he asked her if she and her uncle meant to board the next stagecoach to Bristol, she replied prudently that her uncle had not yet told her what they were going to do.
'You are bound for Bristol, ain't you?' enquired Jimmy.
'Oh yes!' said Pen, with a beautiful disregard for the truth.
They were standing in the taproom, which, at that hour of the morning, was empty, and just as Pen was beginning to say that she wanted her breakfast, the landlady came through the door leading from the kitchen, and asked them if they had heard the news.
'What news?' Pen asked uneasily.
'Why, everyone's in quite a pucker up at Wroxhall, us being quiet folk, and not used to town-ways. But there's my boy Jim come in saying there's one of they Bow Street Runners come down by the Mail. What he may want, surely to goodness there's none of us knows! They do say as how he stopped off at Calne, and come on easy-like to Wroxhall. And there he be, poking his nose into respectable houses, and asking all manner of questions! Well, what I say is, we've nothing to hide, and he may come here if he pleases, but he will learn nothing.'
'Is he coming here?' asked Pen, in a faint voice.
'Going to all the inns hereabout, by what they tell me,' responded the landlady. 'Jim took the notion into his head it's all along of the stagecoach which you and your good uncle was on, sir, for seemingly he's been asking a mort of questions about the passengers. Our Sam looks to see him here inside of half an hour. "Well," I says, "let him come, for I'm an honest woman, and there's never been a word said against the house, not to my knowledge!" Your breakfast will be on the table in ten minutes, sir.'
She bustled into the parlour, leaving Pen rather pale, and Jimmy Yarde suddenly thoughtful. 'Runners, eh?' said that worthy, stroking his chin. 'There now!'
'I have never seen one,' said Pen, with a creditable show of nonchalance. 'It will be most interesting. I wonder what he can want?'
"There's no telling,' replied Jimmy, his lashless eyes dwelling upon her in a considering stare. 'No telling at all. Seems to me, though, he won't be wanting a flash young chub like you.'
'Why, of course not!' replied Pen, forcing a laugh.
'That's what I thought,' said Jimmy, transferring his gaze to the long coat which had been flung across one of the tables. 'Might that be your toge, young shaver?'
'Yes, but I didn't need it after all. It is much warmer outside than I thought it would be.'
He picked it up, shook out its folds, and gave it to her. 'Don't you go leaving things about in common taprooms!' he said austerely. 'There's plenty of files—ah, even in these quiet parts!—would be glad to get their dabblers on to a good toge like that.'
'Oh yes! Thank you! I'll take it upstairs!' said Pen, glad of an opportunity to escape.
'You couldn't do better,' approved Jimmy. 'Then we'll have a bit of food, and though I don't hold with harmen in general—which is to say, with Law-officers, young shaver—why, I'm a peaceable man, and if any such be wishful to search me, they're welcome.'
He strolled into the parlour, with the air of one whose conscience is clean, and Pen hurried off upstairs, to tap urgently on Sir Richard's door.
His voice called to her to come in, and she entered to find him putting the finishing touches to his cravat. He met her eyes in the mirror, and said: 'Well, brat?'
'Sir, we must leave this place instantly!' said Pen impetuously. 'We are in the greatest danger!'
'Why? Has your aunt arrived?' asked Sir Richard, preserving his calm.
'Worse!' Pen declared. 'A Bow Street Runner!'
'Ah, I thought you were a house-breaker in the first place!' said Sir Richard, shaking his head.
'I am not a house-breaker! You know I am not!'
'If the Runners are after you, it is obvious to me that you are a desperate character,' he replied, slipping his snuff-box into his pocket. 'Let us go downstairs, and have some breakfast.'
'Please, dear sir, be serious! I am sure that my Aunt must have set the Runner on to me!'
'My dear child, if there is any one thing more certain than another it is that Bow Street has never heard of your existence. Don't be silly!'
'Oh!' She heaved a sigh of relief. 'I do trust you are right, but it is just the sort of thing Aunt Almeria would do!'
'You are the best judge of that, no doubt, but you may take it from me that it is not in the least the sort of thing a Bow Street Runner would do. You will probably find that the man he wants is our friend Mr Yarde.'
'Yes, at first I thought that too, but he says the Runner is welcome to search him if he wants to.'
'Then it is safe to assume that Mr Yarde has disposed of whatever booty it was he ran off with. Breakfast!'
In considerable trepidation, Pen followed him down to the parlour. They found Jimmy Yarde discussing a plate of cold beef. He greeted Sir Richard with a grin and a wink, obviously quite unabashed by his previous encounter with him that morning, to which he referred in the frankest terms. 'When I meet up with a leery cove, I don't bear malice,' he announced, raising a tankard of ale. 'So here's your wery good health, guv'nor, and no hard feelings!'
Sir Richard seemed to be rather bored, and merely nodded. Jimmy Yarde fixed him with a twinkling eye, and said: 'And no splitting to any harman about poor old Jimmy boning your lobb, because he never did, and you know well it's in your pocket at this wery moment. What's more,' he added handsomely, 'I wouldn't fork you now I has your measure, gov'nor, not for fifty Yellow Boys!'
'I'm glad of that,' said Sir Richard.
'No splitting?' Jimmy said, his head on one side.
'Not if I am allowed to eat my breakfast in peace,' replied Sir Richard wearily.
'All's bowman then!' said Jimmy, 'and not another word will you hear from me, guv'nor, till we gets to Bristol. Damme if I don't ride outside the rattler, just to oblige you!'
Sir Richard looked meditatively at him, but said nothing. Pen sat down facing the window, and watched the road for signs of a Bow Street Runner.
Contary to the landlady's expectations, the Runner did not reach the inn until some little time after the breakfast covers had been removed, and Jimmy Yarde had strolled out to lounge at his ease on a bench set against the wall of the hostelry.
The Runner entered the inn by way of the yard at the back of it, and the first person he encountered was Sir Richard, who was engaged in settling his account with the landlord. Miss Creed, at his elbow, drew his attention to the Runner's arrival by urgently twitching his coat sleeve. He looked up, with raised brows, saw the newcomer, and lifted his quizzing-glass.
'Beg your pardon, sir,' said the Runner, touching his hat. 'Me not meaning to intrude, but being wishful to speak with the landlord.'
'Certainly,' said Sir Richard, his brows still expressive of languid surprise.
'At your convenience, sir: no hurry, sir!' said the Runner, retreating to a discreet distance.
The sigh which escaped Miss Creed was one of such profound relief that it was plain her alarms had not until that moment been allayed. Sir Richard finished paying his shot, and with a brief: 'Come, Pen!' tossed over his shoulder, left the taproom.
'He didn't come to find me!' breathed Pen.
'Of course he didn't.'
'I couldn't help being a little alarmed. What shall we do now, sir?'
'Shake off your very undesirable travelling-acquaintance,' he replied briefly.
She gave a gurgle. 'Yes, but how? I have such a fear that he means to go with us to Bristol.'
'But we are not going to Bristol. While he is being interrogated by that Runner, we, my child, are going to walk quietly out by the back door, and proceed by ways, which I trust will not prove as devious as the tapster's description of them, to Colerne. There we shall endeavour to hire a vehicle to carry us to Queen Charlton.'
'Oh, famous!' cried Pen. 'Let us go at once!'
Five minutes later they left the inn unobtrusively, by way of the yard, found themselves in a hayfield, and skirted it to a gate leading into a ragged spinney.
The village of Colerne was rather less than three miles distant, but long before they had reached it Sir Richard was tired of his portmanteau. 'Pen Creed, you are a pestilent child!' he told her.
'Why, what have I done?' she asked, with one of her wide, enquiring looks.
'You have hailed me from my comfortable house—'
'I didn't! It was you who would come!'
'I was drunk.'
'Well, that was not my fault,' she pointed out.
'Don't interrupt me! You have made me travel for miles in a conveyance smelling strongly of dirt and onions—'
'That was the fat woman's husband,' interpolated Pen. 'I noticed it myself.'
'No one could have failed to notice it. And I am not partial to onions. You drew a portrait of me which led everyone in the coach to regard me in the light of an oppressor of innocent youth—'
'Not the thin, disagreeable man. He wanted me to be oppressed.'
'He was a person of great discrimination. Not content with that, you pitchforked me into what threatens to be a life-friendship with a pickpocket, to escape from whose advances I am obliged to tramp five miles, carrying a portmanteau which is much heavier than I had supposed possible. It only remains for me to become embroiled in an action for kidnapping, which I feel reasonably assured your aunt will bring against me.'
'Yes, and now I come to think of it, I remember that you said you were going to be married,' said Pen, quite unimpressed by these strictures. 'Will she be very angry with you?'
'I hope she will be so very angry that she will wish never to see my face again,' said Sir Richard calmly. 'In fact, brat, that reflection so far outweighs all other considerations that I forgive you the rest.'
'I think you are a very odd sort of person,' said Pen. 'Why did you ask her to marry you, if you did not wish to?'
'I didn't. During the past two days that is the only folly I have not committed.'
'Well, why did you mean to ask her, then?'
'You should know.'
'But you are a man! No one could make you do anything you did not choose to do!'
'They came mighty near it. If you had not dropped out of the window into my arms, I have little doubt that I should at this moment be receiving the congratulations of my acquaintance.'
'Well, I must say I do not think you are at all just to me, then, to call me a pestilent child! I saved you—though, indeed, I didn't know it—from a horrid fate.'
'True. But need I have been saved in a noisome stagecoach?'
'That was part of the adventure. Besides, I explained to you at the outset why I was travelling on the stage. You must own that we are having a very exciting time! And, what is more, you have had more adventure than I, for you actually shared a room with a real thief!'
'So I did,' said Sir Richard, apparently much struck by this circumstance.
'And I can plainly see a cottage ahead of us, so I expect we have reached Colerne,' she said triumphantly.
In a few moments, she was found to have been right. They walked into the village, and fetched up at the best-looking inn.
'Now, what particular lie shall we tell here?' asked Sir Richard.
'A wheel came off our postchaise,' replied Pen promptly.
'Are you never at a loss?' he enquired, regarding her in some amusement.
'Well, to tell you the truth I haven't had very much experience,' she confided.
'Believe me, no one would suspect that.'
'No, I must say I think I was quite born to be a vagabond,' she said seriously.
The story of the faulty wheel was accepted by the landlord of the Green Man without question. If he thought it strange that the travellers should have left the main highway to brave the perils of rough country lanes, his mild surprise was soon dissipated by the announcement that they were on their way to Queen Charlton, and had attempted to find a shorter road. He said that they would have done better to have followed the Bristol road to Cold Ashton, but that perhaps they were strangers in these parts?
'Precisely,' said Sir Richard. 'But we are going to visit friends at Queen Charlton, and we wish to hire some sort of a vehicle to carry us there.'
The smile faded from the landlord's face when he heard this, and he shook his head. There were no vehicles for hire at Colerne. There was, in fact, only one suitable carriage, and that his own gig. 'Which I'd be pleased to let out to your honour if I had but a man to send with it. But the lads is all out haymaking, and I can't go myself. Maybe the blacksmith could see what's to be done to patch up your chaise, sir?'
'Quite useless!' said Sir Richard truthfully. "The wheel is past repairing. Moreover, I instructed my postilion to ride back to Wroxhall. What will you take for lending your gig to me without a man to go with it?'
'Well, sir, it ain't that so much, but how will I get it back?'
'Oh, one of Sir Jasper's grooms will drive it back!' said Pen. 'You need have no fear on that score!'
'Would that be Sir Jasper Luttrell, sir?'
'Yes, indeed, we are going on a visit to him.'
The landlord was plainly shaken. Sir Jasper was apparently well-known to him; on the other hand Sir Richard was not. He cast him a doubtful, sidelong look, and slowly shook his head.
'Well, if you won't let out your gig on hire, I suppose I shall have to buy it,' said Sir Richard.
'Buy my gig, sir?' gasped the landlord, staggered.
'And the horse too, of course,' added Sir Richard, pulling out his purse.
The landlord blinked at him. 'Well, I'm sure, sir! If that's the way it is, I don't know but what I could let you drive the gig over yourself—seeing as how you're a friend of Sir Jasper. Come to think of it, I won't be needing it for a couple of days. Only you'll have to rest the old horse afore you send him back, mind!'
Sir Richard raised no objection to this, and after coming to terms with an ease which led to the landlord's expressing the wish that there were more gentlemen like Sir Richard to be met with, the travellers had only to wait until the cob had been harnessed to the gig, and led round to the front of the inn.
The gig was neither smart nor well-sprung, and the cob's gait was more sure than swift, but Pen was delighted with the whole equipage. She sat perched up beside Sir Richard, enjoying the hot sunshine, and pointing out to him the manifold superiorities of the Somerset countryside over any other county.
They did not reach Queen Charlton until dusk, since the way to it was circuitous, and often very rough. When they came within sight of the village, Sir Richard said: 'Well, brat, what now? Am I to drive you to Sir Jasper Luttrell's house?'
Pen, who had become rather silent during the last five miles of their drive, said with a little gasp: 'I have been thinking that perhaps it would be better if I sent a message in the morning! It is not Piers, you know, but, though I did not think of her at the time, it—it has occurred to me that perhaps Lady Luttrell may not perfectly understand ...'
Her voice died away unhappily. She was revived by Sir Richard's saying in matter-of-fact tones: 'A very good notion. We will drive to an inn.'
'The George was always accounted the best,' offered Pen. 'I have never actually been inside it, but my father was used to say its cellars were excellent.'
The George was discovered to be an ancient half-timbered hostelry with beamed ceilings, and wainscoted parlours. It was a rambling house, with a large yard, and many chintz-hung bedrooms. There was no difficulty in procuring a private parlour, and by the time Pen had washed the dust of the roads from her face, and unpacked the cloak-bag, her spirits, which had sunk unaccountably, had begun to lift again. Dinner was served in the parlour, and neither the landlord nor his wife seemed to recognize in the golden-haired stripling the late Mr Creed's tomboyish little girl.
'If only my aunt does not discover me before I have found Piers!' Pen said, helping herself to some more raspberries.
'We will circumvent her. But touching this question of Piers, do you—er—suppose that he will be able to extricate you from your present difficulties?'
'Well, he will have to, if I marry him, won't he?'
'Undoubtedly. But—you must not think me an incorrigible wet blanket—it is not precisely easy to be married at a moment's notice.'
'Isn't it? I didn't know,' said Pen innocently. 'Oh well, I dare say we shall fly to Gretna Green then! We used to think that would be a splendid adventure.'
'Gretna Green in those clothes?' enquired Sir Richard, levelling his quizzing-glass at her.
'Well, no, I suppose not. But when Piers has explained it all to Lady Luttrell, I expect she will be able to get some proper clothes for me.'
'You do not entertain any doubts of Lady Luttrell's—er—receiving you as her prospective daughter-in-law?'
'Oh no! She was always most kind to me! Only I did think that perhaps it would be better if I saw Piers first.'
Sir Richard, who had so far allowed himself to be borne along resistless on the tide of this adventure, began to perceive that it would shortly be his duty to wait upon Lady Luttrell, and to give her an account of his dealings with Miss Creed. He glanced at that young lady, serenely finishing the last of the raspberries, and reflected, with a wry smile, that the task was not going to be an easy one.
A servant came in to clear away the dishes presently. Pen at once engaged him in conversation and elicited the news that Sir Jasper Luttrell was away from home.
'Oh! But not Mr Piers Luttrell?'
'No, sir, I saw Mr Piers yesterday. Going to Keynsham, he was. I do hear as he has a young gentleman staying with him—a Lunnon gentleman, by all accounts.'
'Oh!' Pen's voice sounded rather blank. As soon as the man had gone away, she said: 'Did you hear that, sir? It makes it just a little awkward, doesn't it?'
'Very awkward,' agreed Sir Richard. 'It seems as though we have now to eliminate the gentleman from London.'
'I wish we could. For I am sure my aunt will guess that I have come home, and if she finds me before I have found Piers, I am utterly undone.'
'But she will not find you. She will only find me.'
'Do you think you will be able to fob her off?'
'Oh, I think so!' Sir Richard said negligently. 'After all, she would scarcely expect you to be travelling in my company, would she? I hardly think she will demand to see my nephew.'
'No, but what if she does?' asked Pen, having no such dependence on her aunt's forbearing.
Sir Richard smiled rather sardonically. 'I am not, perhaps, the best person in the world of whom to make— ah—impertinent demands.'
Pen's eyes lit with sudden laughter. 'Oh, I do hope you will talk to her like that, and look at her just so! And if she brings Fred with her, he will be quite overcome, I dare say, to meet you face to face. For you must know that he admires you excessively. He tries to tie his cravat in a Wyndham Fall, even!'
'That, in itself, I find an impertinence,' said Sir Richard.
She nodded, and lifted a hand to her own cravat. 'What do you think of mine, sir?'
'I have carefully refrained from thinking about it at all. Do you really wish to know?'
'But I have arranged it just as you did!'
'Good God!' said Sir Richard faintly. 'My poor deluded child!'
'You are teasing me! At least it was not ill enough tied to make you rip it off my neck as you did when you first met me!'
'You will recall that we left the inn in haste this morning,' he explained.
'I am persuaded that would not have weighed with you. But you put me in mind of a very important matter. You paid my reckoning there.'
'Don't let that worry you, I beg.'
'I am determined to pay everything for myself,' Pen said firmly. 'It would be a shocking piece of impropriety if I were to be beholden for money to a stranger.'
'True. I had not thought of that.'
She looked up with her sudden bright look of enquiry. 'You are laughing at me again!'
He showed her a perfectly grave countenance. 'Laughing? I?'
'I know very well you are. You may make your mouth prim, but I have noticed several times that you laugh with your eyes.'
'Do I? I beg your pardon!'
'Well, you need not, for I like it. I would not have come all this way with you if you had not had such smiling eyes. Isn't it odd how one knows if one can trust a person, even if he is drunk?'
'Very odd,' he said.
She was hunting fruitlessly through her pockets. 'Where can I have put my purse? Oh, I think I must have put it in my overcoat!'
She had flung this garment down on a chair, upon first entering the parlour, and stepped across the room to feel in the capacious pockets.
'Are you seriously proposing to count a few miserable shillings into my hand?'
'Yes, indeed I am. Oh, here it is!' She pulled out a leather purse with a ring round its neck, from one pocket, stared at it, and exclaimed: 'This is not my purse!'
Sir Richard looked at it through his glass. 'Isn't it? It is certainly not mine, I assure you.'
'It is very heavy. I wonder how it can have come into my pocket? Shall I open it?'
'By all means. Are you quite sure it is not your own?'
'Oh yes, quite!' She moved to the table, tugging at the ring. It was a little hard to pull off, but she managed it after one or two tugs, and shook out into the palm of her hand a diamond necklace that winked and glittered in the light of the candles.
'Richard!' gasped Miss Creed, startled into forgetting the proprieties again. 'Oh, I beg your pardon! But look!'
'I am looking, and you have no need to beg my pardon. I have been calling you Pen these two days.'
'Oh, that is another matter, because you are so much older!'
He looked at her somewhat enigmatically. 'Am I? Well, never mind. Do I understand that this gaud does not belong to you?'
'Good gracious, no! I never saw it before in my life!'
'Oh!' said Sir Richard. 'Well, it is always agreeable to have problems solved. Now we know why your friend Mr Yarde had no fear of the Bow Street Runner.' |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 6 | Pen let the necklace slip through her fingers on to the table. 'You mean that he stole it, and then—and then put it in my pocket? But, sir, this is terrible! Why—why, that Runner will next come after us!'
'I think it more likely that Mr Yarde will come after us.'
'Good God!' Pen said, quite pale with dismay. 'What are we to do?'
He smiled rather maliciously. 'Didn't you desire to meet with a real adventure?'
'Yes, but— Oh, do not be absurd and teasing, I beg of you! What shall we do with the necklace? Couldn't we throw it away somewhere, or hide it in a ditch?'
'We could, of course, but it would surely be a trifle unfair to the owner?'
'I don't care about that,' confessed Pen. 'It would be dreadful to be arrested for thieving, and I know we shall be!'
'Oh, I trust not!' Sir Richard said. He straightened the necklace, where it lay on the table, and looked down at it with a slight frown creasing his brow. 'Yes,' he said meditatively. 'I have seen you before. Now, where have I seen you before?'
'Do please put it away!' begged Pen. 'Only think if a servant were to come into the room!'
He picked it up. 'My lamentable memory! Alas, my lamentable memory! Where, oh, where have I seen you?'
'Dear sir, if Jimmy Yarde finds us, he will very likely cut our throats to get the necklace back!'
'On the contrary, I have his word for it that he is opposed to all forms of violence.'
'But when he does not discover it in my pocket, where he placed it—and now I come to think of it, he actually had my coat in his hands—he must guess that we have discovered it!'
'Very likely he will, but I cannot see what profit there would be in his cutting our throats.' Sir Richard restored the necklace to its leather purse, and dropped it into his pocket. 'We have now nothing to do but to await the arrival of Jimmy Yarde. Perhaps—who knows?—we may induce him to divulge the ownership of the necklace. Meanwhile, this parlour is very stuffy, and the night remarkably fine. Do you care to stroll out with me to admire the stars, brat?'
'I suppose,' said Pen defiantly, 'that you think I am very poor-spirited!'
'Very,' agreed Sir Richard, his eyes glinting under their heavy lids.
'I am not afraid of anything,' Pen announced. 'Merely, I am shocked?
'A waste of time, believe me. Are you coming?'
'Yes, but it seems to me as though you have put a live coal in your pocket! What if some dishonest person were to steal it from you?'
'Then we shall be freed from all responsibility. Come along!'
She followed him out into the warm night. He appeared to have banished all thought of the necklace from his mind. He pointed various constellations out to her, and, drawing her hand through his arm, strolled with her down the street, past the last straggling cottages, into a lane redolent of meadowsweet.
'I suppose I was poor-spirited,' Pen confided presently. 'Shall you feel obliged to denounce poor Jimmy Yarde to the Runner?'
'I hope,' said Sir Richard dryly, 'that Mr Piers Luttrell is a gentleman of resolute character.'
'Why?'
"That he may be able to curb your somewhat reckless friendliness.'
'Well, I haven't seen him for five years, but it was always I who thought of things to do.'
'That is what I feared. Where does he live?'
'Oh, about two miles farther down this road! My home is on the other side of the village. Should you like to see it?'
'Immensely, but not at the moment. We will now retrace our steps, for it is time that you were in bed.'
'I shan't sleep a wink.'
'I trust that you are mistaken, my good child—in fact, I am reasonably certain that you are.'
'And to add to everything,' said Pen, unheeding, 'Piers has got a horrid man staying with him! I don't know what is to be done.'
'In the morning,' said Sir Richard soothingly, 'we will attend to all these difficulties.'
'In the morning, very likely, Aunt Almeria will have discovered me.'
On this gloomy reflection, they retraced their steps to the inn. Its shuttered windows cast golden gleams out into the quiet street, several of them standing open to let in the cool night air. Just as they were about to pass one of them on their way to the inn door, a voice spoke inside the room, and to her astonishment, Sir Richard suddenly gripped Pen's arm, and brought her to a dead halt. She started to enquire the reason for this sudden stop, but his hand across her mouth choked back the words.
The voice from within the house said with a slight stammer: 'You c-can't come up to C-Crome Hall, I tell you! It's b-bad enough as it is. G-Good God, man, if anyone were to see me sneaking off to meet you here they'd pprecious soon smell a rat!'
A more robust voice answered: 'Maybe I've been smelling rats myself, my young buck. Who was it foisted a partner on to me, eh? Were the pair of ye meaning to cheat Horace Trimble? Were ye, my bonny boy?'
'You fool, you let yourself be b-bubbled!' the stammerer said furiously. 'Then you c-come here—enough to ruin everything! I tell you I d-daren't say! And don't come up to C-Crome Hall again, damn you! I'll m-meet you tomorrow, in the spinney down the road. 'Sblood, he can't have g-gone far! Why don't you go to B-Bristol if he didn't b-break back to London? Instead of ccoming here to insult me!'
'I insult you! By the powers, that's rich!' A full-throated laugh followed the words, and the sound of a chair being dashed back on a wooden floor.
'Damn your impudence! You've b-bungled everything, and now you c-come blustering to me! You were to arrange everything! I was to l-leave all to you! Finely you've arranged it! And n-now you expect m-me to set all to rights!'
'Softly, my buck! softly! You're crowing mighty loud, but I did my part of the business all right and tight. It was the man you were so set on that bubbled me, and that makes me think, d'ye hear? It makes me think mighty hard. Maybe you'd better think too—and if you've a notion in your head that Horace Trimble's a green 'un, get rid of it! See?'
'Hush, for G-God's sake! You d-don't know who may be listening! I'll m-meet you tomorrow, at eleven, if I c-can shake off y-young Luttrell. We must think what's to be done!'
A door opened and was hastily shut again. Sir Richard pulled Pen back into the shadows beyond the window, and, a moment later, a slight, cloaked figure came out of the inn, and strode swiftly away into the darkness.
The warning pressure on Pen's arm held her silent, although she was by this time agog with excitement. Sir Richard waited until the dwindling sound of footsteps had died in the distance, and then strolled on with Pen's hand still tucked in his arm, past the open window to the inn-door. Not until they stood in their own parlour again did Pen allow herself to speak, but as soon as the door was shut behind them, she exclaimed: 'What did it mean? He spoke of "Young Luttrell"—did you hear him? It must be the man who is staying with him! But who was the other man, and what were they talking about?'
Sir Richard did not appear to be attending very closely. He was standing by the table, a frown between his eyes, and his mouth rather grim. Suddenly his gaze shifted to Pen's face, but what he said seemed to her incomprehensible. 'Of course!' he muttered softly. 'So that was it!'
'Oh, do tell me!' begged Pen. 'What was it, and why did you stop when you heard the stammering-man speak? Do you—is it possible that you know him?'
'Very well indeed,' replied Sir Richard.
'Good heavens! And it is he who is visiting Piers! Dear sir, does it seem to you that everything is becoming a trifle awkward?'
'Extremely so,' said Sir Richard.
'Well, that is what I thought,' said Pen. 'First we are saddled with a stolen necklace, and now we discover that a friend of yours is staying with Piers!'
'Oh no, we do not!' said Sir Richard. 'That young gentleman is no friend of mine! Nor, I fancy, is his presence in this neighbourhood unconnected with that necklace. If I do not mistake, Pen, we have become enmeshed in a plot from which it will take all my ingenuity to extricate us.'
'I have ingenuity too,' said Miss Creed, affronted.
'Not a scrap,' responded Sir Richard calmly.
She swallowed this, saying in a small voice: 'Very well, if I haven't, I haven't, but I wish you will explain.'
'I feel sure you do,' said Sir Richard: 'But the truth is that I cannot. Not only does it appear to me to be a matter of uncommon delicacy, but it is also for the moment—a little obscure.'
She sighed. 'It does not seem fair, because it was I who found the necklace, after all! Who is the stammering-man? You may just as well tell me that, because Piers will, you know.'
'Certainly. The stammering-man is the Honourable Beverley Brandon.'
'Oh! I don't know him,' said Pen, rather disappointed.
'You are to be congratulated.'
'Is he an enemy of yours?'
'An enemy! No!'
'Well, you seem to dislike him very cordially.'
'That does not make him my enemy. To be exact, he is the younger brother of the lady to whom I was to have been betrothed.'
Pen looked aghast. 'Good God, sir, can he have come in search of you?'
'No, nothing of that kind. Indeed, Pen, I can't tell you more, for the rest is conjecture.' He met her disappointed look, and smiled down at her, gently pinching her chin. 'Poor Pen! Forgive me!'
A little colour stole up to the roots of her hair. 'I do not mean to tease you. I expect you will tell me all about it when—when it isn't conjecture.'
'I expect I shall,' he agreed. 'But that will not be tonight, so be off with you to bed, child!'
She went, but was back again a few minutes later, round-eyed and breathless. 'Richard! He has found us! I have seen him! I am certain it was he!'
'Who?' he asked.
'Jimmy Yarde, of course! It was so hot in my room that I drew back the curtains to open the window, and the moon was so bright that I stood looking out for a minute. And there he was, directly below me! I could not mistake. And the worst is that I fear he saw me, for he drew back at once into the shadow of the house!'
'Did he indeed?' There was a gleam in Sir Richard's eye. 'Well, he is here sooner than I expected. A resourceful gentleman, Mr Jimmy Yarde!'
'But what are we going to do? I am not in the least afraid, but I should like to be told what you wish me to do!'
'That is very easily done. I wish you to exchange bedchambers with me. Show yourself again at the window of your own room, if you like, but on no account pull back the blinds in mine. I have a very earnest desire to meet Mr Jimmy Yarde.'
Her dimples peeped. 'I see! like the fairy-story! "Oh, Grandma, what big teeth you have!" What an adventure we are having! But you will take care, won't you, sir?'
'I will.'
'And you will tell me all about it afterwards?'
'Perhaps.'"
'If you don't,' said Pen, with deep feeling, 'it will be the most unjust thing imaginable!'
He laughed, and, seeing that there was no more to be got out of him, she went away again.
An hour later, the candlelight vanished from the upper room with the open casements and the undrawn blinds, but it was two hours before Mr Yarde's head appeared above the window-sill, and not a light shone in the village.
The moon, sailing across a sky of deepest sapphire, cast a bar of silver across the floor of the chamber, but left the four-poster bed in shadow. The ascent, by way of the porch-roof, a stout drain-pipe, and a gnarled branch of wistaria, had been easy, but Mr Yarde paused before swinging a leg over the sill. His eye, trying to penetrate the darkness, encountered a drab driving-coat, hanging over the back of a chair placed full in the shaft of moonlight. He knew that coat, and a tiny sigh escaped him. He hoisted himself up, and noiselessly slid into the room. He had left his shoes below, and his stockinged-feet made no sound on the floor, as he crept across it.
But there was no heavy leather sack-purse in the pocket of the driving-coat.
He was disappointed, but he had been prepared for disappointment. He stole out of the moonlight to the bedside, listening to the sound of quiet breathing. No tremor disturbed its regularity, and after listening to it for a few minutes, he bent, and began cautiously to slide his hand under the dimly-seen pillow. The other, his right, grasped a muffler, which could be readily clapped over a mouth opened to utter a startled cry.
The cry, hardly more than a croak, strangled at birth, was surprised out of himself, however, for, just as his sensitive fingers felt the object for which they were seeking, two iron hands seized him by the throat, and choked him.
He tore quite unavailingly at the hold, realizing through the drumming in his ears, the bursting of his veins, and the pain in his temples, that he had made a mistake, that the hands crushing the breath out of him certainly did not belong to any stripling.
Just as he seemed to himself to be losing possession of his senses, the grip slackened, and a voice he was learning to hate, said softly: 'Your error, Mr Yarde!'
He felt himself shaken and suddenly released, and, being quite powerless to help himself, fell to the floor and stayed there, making odd crowing noises as he got his wind back. By the time he had recovered sufficiently to struggle on to one elbow, Sir Richard had cast off the coverlet, and sprung out of bed. He was dressed in his shirt and breeches, as Mr Yarde's suffused eyes saw, as soon as Sir Richard had relit the candle by his bed.
Sir Richard laid aside the tinder-box, and glanced down at Mr Yarde. Jimmy's vision was clearing; he was able to see that Sir Richard's lips had curled into a somewhat contemptuous smile. He began gingerly to massage his throat, which felt badly bruised, and waited for Sir Richard to speak.
'I warned you that I was a shockingly light sleeper,' Sir Richard said.
Jimmy cast him a malevolent look, but made no answer.
'Get up!' Sir Richard said. 'You may sit on that chair, Mr Yarde, for we are going to enjoy a heart-to-heart talk.'
Jimmy picked himself up. A glance in the direction of the window was enough to convince him that he would be intercepted before he could reach it. He sat down and drew the back of his hand across his brow.
'Don't let us misunderstand one another!' Sir Richard said. 'You came to find a certain diamond necklace, which you hid in my nephew's coat this morning. There are just three things I can do with you. I can deliver you up to the Law.'
'You can't prove I come to fork the necklace, guv'nor,' Jimmy muttered.
'You think not? We may yet see. Failing the Bow Street Runner—but I feel he would be happy to take you into custody—I fancy a gentleman of the name of Trimble—ah, Horace Trimble, if my memory serves!—would be even happier to relieve me of you.'
The mention of this name brought an expression of great uneasiness into Jimmy's sharp countenance. 'I don't know him! Never heard of any such cove!'
'Oh yes, I think you have!' said Sir Richard.
'I ain't done you any harm, guv'nor, nor intended any! I'll cap downright—'
'You needn't: I believe you.'
Jimmy's spirits began to lift. 'Dang me if I didn't say you was a leery cove! You wouldn't be hard on a cull!'
'That depends on the—er—cull. Which brings me, Mr Yarde, to the third course I might—I say, might, Mr Yarde—pursue. I can let you go.'
Jimmy gasped, swallowed, and muttered hoarsely: 'Spoke like the gentry-cove you are, guv'nor!'
'Tell me what I want to know, and I will let you go,' said Sir Richard.
A wary look came into Jimmy's eyes. 'Spilt, eh? Lord bless you, there ain't anything to tell you!'
'It will perhaps make it easier for you if I inform you that I am already aware that you have been working in—somewhat uneasy partnership—with Mr Horace Trimble.'
'Cap'n Trimble,' corrected Jimmy.
'I should doubt it. He, I take it, is the—er—flash cull—whom you referred to last night.'
'I don't deny it.'
'Furthermore,' said Sir Richard, 'the pair of you were working for a young gentleman with a pronounced stammer. Ah, for a Mr Brandon, to be precise.'
Jimmy had changed colour. 'Stow your whids and plant 'em!' he growled. 'You're too leery for me, see? Damme if I know what your lay is!'
'That need not concern you. Think it over, Mr Yarde! Will you be handed over to Captain Trimble, or do you choose to go as you came, through that window?'
Jimmy sat for a moment, still gently rubbing his throat, and looking sideways at Sir Richard. 'Damn all flash culls!' he said at last. 'I'll whiddle the whole scrap. I ain't a bridle-cull, see? What you calls the High Toby. That ain't my lay: I'm a rum diver. Maybe I've touched the rattler now and then, but I never went on the bridle-lay, not till a certain gentry-cove, which we knows of, tempted me. And I wish I hadn't, see? Five hundred Yellow Boys I was promised, but not a grig will I get! He's a rare gager, that gentry-cove! Dang me if I ever works with such again! He's a bad 'un, guv'nor, you can lay your last megg on that!'
'I am aware. Go on!'
'There's an old gentry-mort going to Bath, see? Lord love you, she was his own mother! Now, that's what I don't hold with, but it ain't none of my business. Me and Cap'n Trimble holds up the chaise by Calne, or thereabouts. The necklace is in a hiding-place behind one of the squabs—ah, and rum squabs they was, all made out of red silk!'
'Mr Brandon knew of this hiding-place, and told you?'
'Lord love you, he made naught of that, guv'nor! We was to snaffle the necklace, and pike on the bean, see?'
'Not entirely.'
'Lope off as fast we could. Now, I don't hold with violence, any gait, nor that stammering young chub neither. But Cap'n Trimble looses off his pops, and one of the outriders gets it in the wing. While the Cap'n's a-covering the coves with his pops, I dubs the jigger—opens the door—and finds a couple of gentry-morts, hollering fit to rouse the countryside. I don't take nothing but the necklace, see? I'm a peevy cove, and this ain't my lay. I don't like it. We pikes, and Cap'n Trimble he pushes his pop into my belly, and says to hand over the necklace. Well, I does so. I'm a peevy cove. I don't hold with violence. Now, the lay is that we take them sparklers to that flash young boman prig, which is taking cover down here, with a regular green 'un, which he gets to know at Oxford. All's Bob, then! But I'm leery, see? Seems to me I'm working with a flash file, and if he makes off with the sparklers, which I suspicion he will, my young chub don't tip me my earnest. I forks the cove. Bristol's the place for me, I thinks, and I gets on to the werry same rattler which you and your nevvy's a-riding in. When that harman from Bow Street comes along, I thinks there's a fastner out for me, and I tips the cole to Adam Tiler, as you might say.'
'You placed the necklace in my nephew's pocket?'
'That's it, guv'nor. No harman won't suspicion a young shaver like him, I thinks. But you and he lopes off unbeknownst, and I comes to this place. Oh, I knew you was a peevy cull! So I touts the case, see?'
'No.'
'Runs my winkers over the house,' said Jimmy impatiently. 'I see your young shaver at this werry window— I should have remembered that you was a peevy cove, guv'nor.'
'You should indeed. However, you have told me what I wish to know, and you are now at liberty to—er—pike on the bean.'
'Spoke like the gentry-cove you are!' said Jimmy hoarsely. 'I'm off! And no hard feelings!'
It did not take him long to climb out of the window. He waved his hand with cheerful impudence, and disappeared from Sir Richard's sight.
Sir Richard undressed, and went to bed. The boots, who brought up his blue coat in the morning, and his top-boots, was a little surprised to find that he had exchanged bedchambers with his supposed nephew, but accepted his explanation that he disliked his original apartment with only an inward shrug. The Quality, he knew, were full of whims and oddities.
Sir Richard looked through his glass at his coat, which he had sent downstairs to be pressed, and said he felt sure the unknown presser had done his best. He next levelled the eyeglass at his top-boots, and sighed. But when he was asked if there were anything amiss, he said No, nothing: it was good for a man to be removed occasionally from civilisation.
The top-boots stood side by side, glossily black and without a speck upon them of dust, or mud. Sir Richard shook his head sadly, and sighed again. He was missing his man, Biddle, in whose ingenious brain lay the secret of polishing boots so that you could see your face reflected in them.
But to anyone unacquainted with the art of Biddle Sir Richard's appearance, when he presently descended the stairs, left little to be desired. There were no creases in the blue coat, his cravat would have drawn approval from Mr Brummell himself, and his hair was brushed into that state of cunning disorder known as the Windswept Style.
As he rounded the bend in the staircase, he heard Miss Creed exchanging friendly salutations with a stranger. The stranger's voice betrayed his identity to Sir Richard, whose eyes managed, for all their sleepiness, to take very good stock of Captain Trimble.
Sir-Richard came down the last flight in a leisurely fashion, and interrupted Miss Creed's harmless remarks, by saying in his most languid tone: 'My good boy, I wish you will not converse with strangers. It is a most lamentable habit. Rid yourself of it, I beg!'
Pen looked round in surprise. It occurred to her that she had not known that her protector could sound so haughty, or look so—yes, so insufferably proud!
Captain Trimble turned too. He was a fleshy man, with a coarse, florid sort of good-looks, and a rather loud taste in dress. He said jovially: 'Oh, I don't mind the lad's talking to me!'
Sir Richard's hand sought his quizzing-glass, and raised it. It was said in haut-ton circles that the two deadliest weapons against all forms of pretension were Mr Brummell's lifted eyebrow, and Sir Richard Wyndham's quizzing-glass. Captain Trimble, though thick-skinned, was left in no doubt of its blighting message. His cheeks grew dark, and his jaw began to jut belligerently.
'And who might you be, my fine buck?' he demanded.
'I might be a number of different persons,' drawled Sir Richard.
Pen's eyes were getting rounder and rounder, for it appeared to her that this new and haughty Sir Richard was deliberately trying to provoke Captain Trimble into quarrelling with him.
For a moment it seemed as though he would succeed. Captain Trimble started forward, with his fists clenched, and an ugly look on his face. But just as he was about to speak, his expression changed, and he stopped in his tracks, and ejaculated: 'You're Beau Wyndham! Well, I'll be damned!'
'The prospect,' said Sir Richard, bored, 'leaves me unmoved.'
With the discovery of Sir Richard's identity, the desire to come to blows with him seemed to have deserted the Captain, He gave a somewhat unconvincing laugh, and said that there was no offence.
The quizzing-glass focused upon his waistcoat. A shudder visibly shook Sir Richard. 'You mistake—believe me, you mistake, sir. That waistcoat is an offence in itself.'
'Oh, I know you dandies!' said the Captain waggishly. 'You're full of quips. But we shan't quarrel over a little thing like that. Oh, no!'
The quizzing-glass fell. 'I am haunted by waistcoats,' Sir Richard complained. 'There was something with tobine stripes at Reading, horrible to any person of taste. There was a mustard-coloured nightmare at—Wroxham was it? No. I fancy, if memory serves me, Wroxham was rendered hideous by a catskin disaster with pewter buttons. The mustard-coloured nightmare came later. And now, to crown all—'
'Catskin?' interrupted Captain Trimble, his eyes fixed intently upon that disdainful countenance. 'Catskin, did you say?'
'Pray do not keep on repeating it!' said Sir Richard. 'The very thought of it—'
'Look'ee, sir, I'm by way of being interested in a catskin waistcoat myself! Are you sure it was at Wroxham you saw it?'
'A catskin waistcoat on its way to Bristol,' said Sir Richard dreamily.
'Bristol! Damme, I never thought—I thank you, Sir Richard! I thank you very much indeed!' said Captain Trimble, and plunged down the passage leading to the stableyard at the back of the inn.
Sir Richard watched him go, a faint, sweet smile on his lips. 'There, now!' he murmured. 'An impetuous gentleman, I fear. Let it be a lesson to you, brat, not to confide too much in strangers.'
'I didn't!' said Pen. 'I merely—'
'But he did,' Sir Richard said. 'A few chance words let fall from my tongue, and our trusting acquaintance is already calling for his horse. I want my breakfast.'
'But why have you sent him to Bristol?' Pen demanded.
'Well, I wanted to get rid of him,' he replied, strolling into the parlour.
'I thought you were trying to pick a quarrel with him.'
'I was, but he unfortunately recognized me. A pity. It would have given me a good deal of pleasure to have put him to sleep. However, I dare say it has all turned out for the best. I should have been obliged to have tied him up somewhere, which would have been a nuisance, and might have led to future complications. I shall be obliged to leave you for a short space this morning, by the way.'
'Do, please, sir, stop being provoking!' begged Pen. 'Did you see Jimmy Yarde last night, and what happened?'
'Oh yes, I saw him! Really, I don't think anything of particular moment happened.'
'He didn't try to murder you?'
'Nothing so exciting. He tried merely to recover the diamonds. When he—er—failed to do so, we enjoyed a short conversation, after which he left the inn, as unobtrusively as he had entered it.'
'Through the window, you mean. Well, I am glad you let him go, for I could not help liking him. But what are we going to do now, if you please?'
'We are now going to eliminate Beverley,' replied Sir Richard, carving the ham.
'Oh, the stammering-man! How shall we do that? He sounded very disagreeable, but I don't think we should eliminate him in a rough way, do you?'
'By no means. Leave the matter in my hands, and I will engage for it that he will be eliminated without the least pain or inconvenience to anyone.'
'Yes, but then there is the necklace,' Pen pointed out. 'I feel that before we attend to anything else we ought to get rid of it. Only fancy if you were to be found with it in your pocket!'
'Very true. But I have arranged for that. The necklace belongs to Beverley's mother, and he shall restore it to her.'
Pen laid down her knife and fork. 'Then that explains it all! I thought that stammering-man had more to do with it than you would tell me. I suppose he hired Jimmy Yarde, and that other person, to steal the necklace?' She wrinkled her brow. 'I don't wish to say rude things about your friends, Richard, but it seems to me very wrong of him—most improper!'
'Most,' he agreed.
'Even dastardly!'
'I think we might call it dastardly.'
'Well, that is what it seems to me. I see now that there is a great deal in what Aunt Almeria says. She considers that there are terrible pitfalls in Society.'
Sir Richard shook his head sadly. 'Alas, too true!'
'And vice,' said Pen awfully. 'Profligacy, and extravagance, you know.'
'I know.'
She picked up her knife and fork again. 'It must be very exciting,' she said enviously.
'Far be it from me to destroy your illusions, but I feel I should inform you that stealing one's mother's diamonds is not the invariable practice of members of the haut ton.'
'Of course not. I know that!' said Pen with dignity. She added in persuasive tones: 'Shall I come with you when you go to meet the stammering-man?'
'No,' answered Sir Richard, not mincing matters.
'I thought you would say that. I wish I were really a man.'
'I still should not take you with me.'
'Then you would be very selfish, and disagreeable, and altogether abominable!' declared Pen roundly.
'I think I am,' reflected Sir Richard, recalling his sister's homily.
The large eyes softened instantly, and as they scanned Sir Richard's face a slight flush mounted to Pen's cheeks. She bent over her plate again, saying in a gruff little voice: 'No, you are not. You are very kind, and obliging, and I am sorry I teased you.'
Sir Richard looked at her. He seemed to be about to speak, but she forestalled him, adding buoyantly: 'And when I tell Piers how well you have looked after me, he will be most grateful to you, I assure you.'
'Will he?' said Sir Richard, at his dryest. 'I am afraid I was forgetting Piers.' |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 7 | The spinney down the road, referred to by Beverley in his assignation with Captain Trimble, was not hard to locate. A careless question put to one of the ostlers elicited the information that it formed part of the grounds of Crome Hall. Leaving Pen to keep a sharp look-out for signs of an invasion by her relatives, Sir Richard set out shortly before eleven o'clock, to keep Captain Trimble's appointment. The impetuous Captain had indeed called for his horse, and had set off in the direction of Bristol, with his cloak-bag strapped on to the saddle. He had paid his shot, so it did not seem as though he contemplated returning to Queen Charlton.
At the end of a ten-minute walk, Sir Richard reached the outskirts of the spinney. A gap in the hedge showed him a trodden path through the wood, and he followed this, glad to be out of the strong sunlight. The path led to a small clearing, where a tiny stream ran between clumps of rose-bay willow herb in full flower. Here a slightly built young gentleman, dressed in the extreme of fashion, was switching pettishly with his cane at the purple heads of the willow-herb. The points of his collar were so monstrous as to make it almost impossible for him to turn his head, and his coat fitted him so tightly that it seemed probable that it must have needed the combined efforts of three strong men to force him into it. Very tight pantaloons of a delicate biscuit-hue encased his rather spindly legs, and a pair of tasselled Hessians sneered at their sylvan surroundings.
The Honourable Beverley Brandon was not unlike his sister Melissa, but the classic cast of his features was spoiled by a pasty complexion, and a weakness about mouth and chin not shared by Melissa. He turned, as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, and started forward, only to be fetched up short by the sight, not of Captain Trimble's burly figure, but of a tall, well-built gentleman in whom he had not the slightest difficulty in recognizing his prospective brother-in-law.
He let his malacca cane drop from suddenly nerveless fingers. His pale eyes stared at Sir Richard. 'W-w-what the d-devil?' he stammered.
Sir Richard advanced unhurriedly across the clearing. 'Good-morning, Beverley,' he said, in his pleasant, drawling voice.
'W-what are you d-doing here?' Beverley demanded, the wildest surmises chasing one another through his brain.
'Oh, enjoying the weather, Beverley, enjoying the weather! And you?'
'I'm staying with a friend. F-fellow I knew up at Oxford!'
'Indeed?' Sir Richard's quizzing-glass swept the glade, as though in search of Mr Brandon's host. 'A delightful rendezvous! One would almost suspect you of having an assignation with someone!'
'N-no such thing! I was j-just taking the air!'
The quizzing-glass was levelled at him. Sir Richard's pained eye ran over his person. 'Putting the countryside to scorn, Beverley? Strange that you who care so much about your appearance should achieve such lamentable results! Now, Cedric cares nothing for his, but—er—always looks the gentleman.'
'You have a d-damned unpleasant tongue, Richard, b-but you needn't think I'll put up with it j-just because you've known me for y-years!'
'And how,' enquired Sir Richard, faintly interested, 'do you propose to put a curb on my tongue?'
Beverley glared at him. He knew quite as well as Captain Trimble that Sir Richard's exquisite tailoring and languid bearing were deceptive; that he sparred regularly with Gentleman Jackson, and was accounted one of the best amateur heavyweights in England. 'W-what are you d-doing here?' he reiterated weakly.
'I came to keep your friend Trimble's appointment with you,' said Sir Richard, removing a caterpillar from his sleeve. Ignoring a startled oath from Mr Brandon, he added: 'Captain Trimble—by the way, you must tell me sometime where he acquired that unlikely title—found himself obliged to depart for Bristol this morning. Rather a hasty person, one is led to infer.'
'D-damn you, Richard, you mean you sent him off! W-what do you know about Trimble, and why did—'
'Yes, I fear that some chance words of mine may perhaps have influenced him. There was a man in a catskin waistcoat—dear me, there seems to be a fatal spell attached to that waistcoat! You look quite pale, Beverley.'
Mr Brandon had indeed changed colour. He shouted: 'S-stop it! So Yarde split, d-did he? Well, w-what the d-devil has it to do with you, hey?'
'Altruism, Beverley, sheer altruism. You see, your friend Yarde—you know, I cannot congratulate you on your choice of tools—saw fit to hand the Brandon diamonds into 'my keeping.'
Mr Brandon looked quite stupefied. 'Handed them to you? Yarde d-did that? B-but how d-did you know he had them? How c-could you have known?'
'Oh, I didn't!' said Sir Richard, taking snuff.
'B-but if you didn't know, why d-did you constrain him—oh, what the d-devil does all this m-mean?'
'You have it wrong, my dear Beverley. I didn't constrain him. I was, in fact, an unwitting partner in the crime. I should perhaps explain that Mr Yarde was being pursued by a Runner from Bow Street.'
'A Runner!' Mr Brandon began to look ashen. 'Who set them on? G-god damn it, I—'
'I have no idea. Presumably your respected father, possibly Cedric. In Mr Yarde's picturesque but somewhat obscure language, he—er—tipped the cole to Adam Tiler. Have I that right?'
'How the d-devil should I know?' snapped Brandon.
'You must forgive me. You seem to me to be so familiar with—er—thieves and—er—swashbucklers, that I assumed that you were conversant also with thieving cant.'
'D-don't keep on talking about thieves!' Beverley said, stamping his foot.
'It is an ugly word, isn't it?' agreed Sir Richard.
Beverley ground his teeth, but said in a blustering voice: 'Very well! I did t-take the damned necklace! If you m-must know, I'm d-done up, ruined! But you n-needn't take that psalm-singing t-tone with me! If I d-don't sell it, my father will soon enough!'
'I don't doubt you, Beverley, but I must point out to you that you have forgotten one trifling circumstance in your very engaging explanation. The necklace belongs to your father.'
'I c-consider it's family property. It's folly to keep it w-when we're all of us aground! D-damn it, I was forced to take the thing! You don't know w-what it is to be in the p-power of a d-damned cent-per-cent! If the old m-man would have p-parted, this wouldn't have happened! I told him a m-month ago I hadn't a feather to fly with, but the old fox wouldn't c-come up to scratch. I tell you, I've no c-compunction! He lectured me as though he himself w-weren't under hatches, which, by God, he is! Deep b-basset's been his ruin; m-myself, I prefer to g-go to perdition with a d-dice-box.' He gave a reckless laugh, and suddenly sat down on the moss-covered stump of a felled tree, and buried his face in his hands.
'You are forgetting women, wine, and horses,' said Sir Richard unemotionally. 'They also have played not inconsiderable roles in this dramatic progress of yours. Three years ago you were once again under the hatches. I forget what it cost to extricate you from your embarrassments, but I do seem to recall that you gave your word you would not again indulge in—er—quite so many excesses.'
'Well, I'm n-not expecting you to raise the w-wind for me this time,' said Beverley sulkily.
'What's the figure?' Sir Richard asked.
'How should I know? I'm n-not a damned b-banking clerk! T-twelve thousand or so, I dare say. If you hadn't spoiled my g-game, I c-could have settled the whole thing.'
'You delude yourself. When I encountered your friend Yarde he was making for the coast with the diamonds in his pocket.'
'Where are they now?'
'In my pocket,' Sir Richard said coolly.
Beverley lifted his head. 'L-listen, Richard, you're not a b-bad fellow! Who's to know you ever had the d-diamonds in your hands? It ain't your affair: give them to m-me, and forget all about the rest! I swear I'll n-never breathe a w-word to a soul!'
'Do you know, Beverley, you nauseate me? As for giving you the diamonds, I have come here with exactly that purpose.'
Beverley's hand shot out. 'I d-don't care what you think of m-me! Only hand the n-necklace over!'
'Certainly,' Sir Richard said, taking the leather purse out of his pocket. 'But you, Beverley, will give them back to your mother.'
Beverley stared at him. 'I'll be d-damned if I will! You fool, how could I?'
'You may concoct what plausible tale you please: I will even engage myself to lend it my support. But you will give back the necklace.'
A slight sneer disfigured Beverley's face. 'Oh, j-just as you l-like! Hand it over!'
Sir Richard tossed the purse over to him. 'Ah, Beverley! Perhaps I should make it clear to you that if, when I return to town, it has not been restored to Lady Saar I shall be compelled to—er—split on you.'
'You won't!' Beverley said, stowing the purrse away in an inner pocket. 'M-mighty pretty behaviour for a b-brother-in-law!'
'But I am not your brother-in-law,' said Sir Richard gently.
'Oh, you n-needn't think I don't know you're g-going to m-marry Melissa! Our scandals will become yours too. I think you'll keep your m-mouth shut.'
'I am always sorry to disappoint expectations, but I have not the smallest intention of marrying your sister,' said Sir Richard, taking another pinch of snuff.
Beverley's jaw dropped. 'You d-don't mean she w-wouldn't have you?'
'No, I don't mean that.'
'B-but it's as g-good as settled!'
'Not, believe me, by me.'
'The d-devil!' Beverley said blankly.
'So you see,' pursued Sir Richard, 'I should have no compunction whatsoever in informing Saar of this episode.'
'You w-wouldn't split on me to my f-father!' Beverley cried, jumping up from the tree-stump.
'That, my dear Beverley, rests entirely with you.'
'But, d-damn it, m-man, I can't give the d-diamonds back! I tell you I'm d-done—up, fast aground!'
'I fancy that to have married into your family would have cost me considerably more than twelve thousand pounds. I am prepared to settle your debts—ah, for-the last time, Beverley!'
'D-devilish good of you,' muttered Beverley. 'G-give me the money, and I'll settle 'em myself.'
'I fear that your intercourse with Captain Trimble has led you to credit others with his trusting disposition. I, alas, repose not the slightest reliance on your word. You may send a statement of your debts to my town house. I think that is all—except that you will be recalled to London suddenly, and you will leave Crome Hall, if you are wise, not later than tomorrow morning.'
'Blister it, I w-won't be ordered about by y-you! I'll leave w-when I choose!'
'If you don't choose to do so in the morning, you will leave in the custody of a Bow Street Runner.'
Beverley coloured hotly. 'By G-God, I'll p-pay you for this, Richard!'
'But not, if I know you, until I have settled your debts,' said Sir Richard, turning on his heel.
Beverley stood still, watching him walk away down the path, until the undergrowth hid him from sight. It was several minutes before it occurred to him that although Sir Richard had been unpleasantly frank on some subjects, he had not divulged how or why he came to be in Queen Charlton.
Beverley frowned over this. Sir Richard might, of course, be visiting friends in the neighbourhood, but apart from a house belonging to some heiress or other, Crome Hall was the only country seat of any size for several miles. The more Beverley considered the matter, the more inexplicable became Sir Richard's presence. From a sort of sullen curiosity, he passed easily to a mood of suspicion, and began to think that there was something very odd about the whole affair, and to wonder whether any profit could be made out of it.
He was not in the least grateful to Sir Richard for promising to pay his debts. He certainly wished to silence his more rapacious creditors, but he would have considered it a stupid waste of money to settle any bill which could possibly be held over to some later date. Moreover, the mere payment of his debts would not line his pockets, and it was hard to see how he was to continue to support life in the manner to which he was accustomed.
He took the necklace out, and looked at it. It was a singularly fine specimen of the jeweller's art, and several of the stones in it were of a truly formidable size. It was worth perhaps twice twelve thousand pounds. One did not, of course, find it easy to obtain the real value of stolen goods, but even if he had been forced to sell it for as little as twenty thousand pounds he would still have been eight thousand pounds in pocket, since there was no longer the least necessity to share the proceeds with Horace Trimble. Trimble, Beverley thought, has bungled the affair, and deserved nothing. If only Richard could be silenced, Trimble need never know that the necklace had been recovered from Jimmy Yarde, and it could be sold to the sole advantage of the only one of the three persons implicated in its theft who had a real right to it.
The more he reflected on these lines, and the longer he gazed at the diamonds, the more fixed became Beverley's conviction that Sir Richard, instead of assisting him in his financial difficulties, had actually robbed him of eight thousand pounds, if not more. A burning sense of injury possessed him, and if he could at that moment have done Sir Richard an injury, without incurring any himself, he would certainly have jumped at the chance.
But short of lying in wait for him, and shooting him, there did not seem to be anything he could do to Richard, with advantage; and although he would have been very glad to have heard of Richard's sudden death, and would have thought it, quite sincerely, a judgment on him, his murderous inclination was limited, to do him justice, to a strong wish that Richard would fall out of a window, and break his neck, or be set upon by armed highwaymen, and summarily slain. At the same time, there was undoubtedly something queer about Richard's being in this remote village, and it might be worth while to discover what had brought him to Queen Charlton.
Sir Richard, meanwhile, walked back to the village, arriving at the George in time to see a couple of sweating horses being led into the stable, and a postchaise being pushed into one corner of the roomy yard. He was therefore fully prepared to encounter strangers in the inn, and any doubts of their identity were set at rest upon his stepping into the entrance-parlour, and perceiving a matron with an imposing front seated upon one of the oaken settles, and vigorously fanning her heated countenance. At her elbow stood a stockily built young gentleman with his hair brushed into a Brutus, mopping his brow. He had somewhat globular eyes of no particular colour, and when seen in profile bore a distinct likeness to a hake.
The same unfortunate resemblance was to be observed, though in a less pronounced degree, in Mrs Griffin. The lady was built on massive lines, and appeared to be feeling the heat. Possibly a travelling costume of purple satin trimmed with a quantity of sarsenet, and worn under a spencer, and a voluminous cloak of drab merino cloth, might have contributed to her discomfort. Her locks were confined in a round cap, and over this she wore a beehive bonnet of moss-straw, trimmed with enough plumes to remind Sir Richard forcibly of a hearse. The landlord was standing in front of her in an attitude of concern, and as Sir Richard stepped into the entrance-parlour, she said in tones of strong resolution: 'You are deceiving me! I demand to have this—this youth brought before me!'
'But, Mama!' said the stocky young man unhappily.
'Silence, Frederick!' pronounced the matron.
'But consider, Mama! If the—the young man the landlord speaks of is travelling with his uncle, he could not possibly be—be my cousin, could he?'
'I do not believe a word of what this man says!' declared Mrs Griffin. 'I should not wonder if he had been bribed.'
The landlord regretfully said that no one had tried to bribe him.
'Pshaw!' said Mrs Griffin.
Sir Richard judged it to be time to call attention to his own presence. He walked forward in the direction of the staircase.
'Here is the gentleman!' said the landlord, with a good deal of relief. 'He will tell for himself that what I've said is the truth, ma'am.'
Sir Richard paused, and glanced with raised eyebrows from Mrs Griffin to her son, and from Mr Frederick Griffin to the landlord. 'I beg your pardon?' he drawled.
The attention of the Griffins instantly became focused upon him. The gentleman's eyes were riveted to his cravat; the lady, taking in his air of elegance, was plainly shaken.
'If your honour pleases!' said the landlord. 'The lady, sir, is come in search of a young gentleman, which has run away from school, the same being her ward. I've told her that I have but one young gentleman staying in the house, and him your honour's nephew, and I'd be glad if you'd bear me out, sir.'
'Really,' said Sir Richard, bored, 'I don't know whom you have staying in the house besides myself and my nephew.'
'The question is, have you a nephew?' demanded Mrs Griffin.
Sir Richard raised his quizzing-glass, surveyed her through it, and bowed slightly. 'I was certainly under the impression that I had a nephew, ma'am. May I ask in what way he interests you?'
'If he is your nephew, I have no interest in him whatsoever,' declared the matron handsomely.
'Mama!' whispered her son, anguished. 'Recollect, I beg of you! A stranger! No proof! The greatest discretion!'
'I am quite distracted!' said Mrs Griffin, shedding tears.
This had the effect of driving the landlord from the room, and of flustering Mr Griffin. Between trying to pacify his parent, and excusing such odd behaviour to the elegant stranger, he became hotter than ever, and floundered in a morass of broken phrases. The look of astonishment on Sir Richard's face, the pained lift of his brows, quite discomposed him, and he ended by saying: 'The truth is my mother is sadly overwrought!'
'My confidence has been betrayed!' interpolated Mrs Griffin, raising her face from her damp handkerchief.
'Yes, Mama: precisely so! Her confidence has been betrayed, sir, by—by the shocking conduct of my cousin, who has—'
'I have nourished a viper in my bosom!' said Mrs Griffin.
'Just so, Mama. She has nourished—at least, not quite that, perhaps, but it is very bad, very upsetting to a lady of delicate sensibility!'
'All my life,' declaimed Mrs Griffin, 'I have been surrounded by ingratitude!'
'Mama, you cannot be surrounded by—and in any case, you know it is not so! Do, pray, calm yourself! I shall claim your indulgence, sir. The circumstances are so peculiar, and my cousin's behaviour has exerted so strong an effect upon my poor mother that—in short—'
'It is the impropriety of it which is worse than anything!' said Mrs Griffin.
'Exactly so, Mama. You see, it is the impropriety, sir—I mean, my mother is not quite herself.'
'I shall never,' announced the matron, 'hold up my head again! It is my belief that this person is in league with her!'
'Mama, most earnestly I implore you—!'
'Her?' repeated Sir Richard, apparently bewildered.
'Him!' corrected Mr Griffin.
'You must forgive me if I do not perfectly understand you,' said Sir Richard. 'I apprehend that you have— er—mislaid a youth, and have come—'
'Precisely so, sir! We mis—at least, no, no, we did not mislay him, of course!'
'Ran away!' uttered Mrs Griffin, emerging from the handkerchief for a brief instant.
'Ran away,' corroborated her son.
'But in what way,' enquired Sir Richard, 'does this concern me, sir?'
'Not at all, sir, I assure you! No such suspicion is cherished by me, upon my word!'
'What suspicion?' asked Sir Richard, still more bewildered.
'None sir, none in the world! That is just what I was saying. I have no suspicion—'
'But I have!' said Mrs Griffin, in much more robust tones. 'I accuse you of concealing the truth from me!'
'Mama, do but consider! You cannot—you know you cannot insult this gentleman by insinuating—'
'In the execution of my duty there is nothing I cannot do!' responded his mother nobly. 'Besides, I do not know him. I mistrust him.'
Mr Griffin turned wretchedly to Sir Richard: 'You see, sir, my mother—'
'Mistrusts me,' supplied Sir Richard.
'No, no, I assure you! My mother is sadly put out, and scarcely knows what she is saying.'
'I am in the fullest possession of my faculties, I thank you, Frederick!' said Mrs Griffin, gathering strength.
'Of course, of course, Mama! But the agitation—the natural agitation—'
'If he is speaking the truth,' interrupted Mrs Griffin, 'let him summon his nephew to stand before me!'
'Ah, I begin to understand you!' said Sir Richard. 'Is it possible, ma'am, that you suspect my nephew of being your errant ward?'
'No, no!' said Griffin feebly.
'Yes!' declared his mother.
'But Mama, only consider what such a thought must imply!' said Mr Griffin in a frenzied aside.
'I can believe anything of that unnatural creature!'
'I should doubt very much whether my nephew is upon the premises,' said Sir Richard coldly. 'He was engaged to spend the day with friends, upon an expedition of pleasure. However, if he should not yet have left the house, I will engage to—er—allay all these heart burnings.'
'If he has run out to escape us, I shall await his return!' said Mrs Griffin. 'And so I warn you!'
'I admire your resolution, ma'am, but I must point out to you that your movements are of no possible interest to me,' said Sir Richard, stepping over to the bell, and jerking it.
'Frederick!' said Mrs Griffin. 'Will you stand by and hear your mother being insulted by one whom I strongly suspect of being a dandy?'
'But Mama, indeed, it is no concern of ours if he is!'
'Perhaps,' said Sir Richard, in arctic tones, 'it may be of service if I make myself known to you, ma'am. My name is Wyndham.'
Mrs Griffin received this information with every appearance of disdain, but its effect upon her son was staggering. His eyes seemed to be in danger of bursting out of their sockets; he started forward, and ejaculated in tones of deepest reverence: 'Sir! is this possible? Have I the honour of addressing Sir Richard Wyndham?'
Sir Richard bowed slightly.
'The celebrated Whip?' asked Mr Griffin.
Sir Richard bowed again.
'The creator of the Wyndham Fall?' pursued Mr Griffin, almost overcome.
Tired of bowing, Sir Richard said: 'Yes.'
'Sir,' said Mr Griffin, 'I am happy to make your acquaintance! My name is Griffin!'
'How do you do?' murmured Sir Richard, holding out his hand.
Mr Griffin clasped it. 'I wonder I should not have recognized you. Mama, we have been quite mistaken. This is none other than the famous Sir Richard Wyndham—the friend of Brummell, you know! You must have heard me—you must have heard him spoken of. It is quite impossible that he can know anything of my cousin's whereabouts.'
She seemed to accept this, though with obvious reluctance. She looked Sir Richard over with disfavour, and said paralysingly: 'I have the greatest dislike of all forms of dandyism, and I have ever deplored the influence exerted by the Bow-Window set upon young men of respectable upbringing. However, if you are indeed Sir Richard Wyndham, I dare say you would not object to showing my son how to arrange his cravat in what he calls the Wyndham Fall, so that he need no longer spoil every neckcloth in his drawer before achieving a result which I consider lamentable.'
'Mama!' whispered the unhappy Mr Griffin. 'I beg of you!'
The entrance of a servant, in answer to the bell's summons, came as a timely interruption. Upon being asked to discover whether Sir Richard's nephew were in the house, he was able to reply that the young gentleman had left the inn some time previously.
'Then I fear there is nothing for you to do but to await his return,' said Sir Richard, addressing himself to Mrs Griffin.
'We should not dream of—Mama, there can be no doubt that she—he—did not come here after all. Lady Luttrell disclaims all knowledge, remember, and she must certainly have known if my cousin had come into this neighbourhood.'
'If I could think that she had gone to cousin Jane, all would not yet be lost!' said Mrs Griffin. 'Yet it is possible? I fear the worst!'
'This is all very perplexing,' complained Sir Richard. 'I was under the impression that this mysterious truant was of the male sex.'
'Frederick, my nerves can stand no more!' said Mrs Griffin, surging to her feet. 'If you mean to drag me the length of England again, I must insist upon being permitted the indulgence of half an hour's solitude first!'
'But Mama, it was not I who would come here!' expostulated Mr Griffin.
Sir Richard again rang the bell, and this time desired that a chambermaid should be sent to him. Mrs Griffin was presently consigned to the care of an abigail, and left the room majestically, commanding hot water to wash with, tea, and a decent bedchamber.
Her son heaved a sigh of relief. 'I must beg pardon, Sir Richard! You must allow me to beg your pardon!'
'Not at all,' said Sir Richard.
'Yes, yes, I insist! Such an unfortunate misunderstanding! An explanation is due to you! A slip of the tongue, you know, but my mother is labouring under strong emotion, and does not quite heed what she says. You noticed it: indeed, no one could wonder at your surprise! The unhappy truth, sir, is that my cousin is not a boy, but—in a word, sir—a female!'
'This explanation, Mr Griffin, is quite unnecessary, believe me.'
'Sir,' said Mr Griffin earnestly, 'as a Man of the World, I should value your opinion! Concealment is useless: the truth must be discovered in the end. What, sir, would you think of a member of the Weaker Sex who assumed the disguise of a man, and left the home of her natural protector by way of the window?'
'I should assume,' replied Sir Richard, 'that she had strong reasons for acting with such resolution.'
'She did not wish to marry me,' said Mr Griffin gloomily.
'Oh!' said Sir Richard.
'Well, I'm sure I can't see why she should be so set against me, but that's not it, sir. The thing is that here's my mother determined to find her, and to make her marry me, and so hush up the scandal. But I don't like it above half. If she dislikes the notion so much, I don't think I ought to marry her, do you?'
'Emphatically not!'
'I must say I am very glad to hear you say that, Sir Richard!' said Mr Griffin, much cheered. 'For you must know that my mother has been telling me ever since yesterday that I must marry her now, to save her name. But I think she would very likely make me uncomfortable, and nothing could make up for that, in my opinion.'
'A lady capable of escaping out of a window in the guise of a man would quite certainly make you more than uncomfortable,' said Sir Richard.
'Yes, though she's only a chit of a girl, you know. In fact, she is not yet out. I am very happy to have had the benefit of the opinion of a Man of the World. I feel that I can rely on your judgment.'
'On my judgment you might, but in nothing else, I assure you,' said Sir Richard. 'You know nothing of me, after all. How do you know that I am not now concealing your cousin from you?'
'Ha-ha! Very good, upon my word! Very good, indeed!' said Mr Griffin, saluting a jest of the first water. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 8 | The Griffins did not leave Queen Charlton until the cool of the afternoon, and by the time he saw their chaise off the premises of the George, Sir Richard was heartily sick of the company of surely one of his most devout worshippers. No sign was seen of Pen, who had no doubt fled the house upon the Griffins' arrival. What sustenance she had snatched up to bear her strength up through a long day, Sir Richard had no means of knowing.
Mrs Griffin, tottering downstairs to partake of light refreshment, found her son hanging upon Sir Richard's bored lips. Upon hearing that he had divulged the secret of Pen's identity, she first showed a dangerous tendency to swoon, but upon being supplied with a glass of ratafia by Sir Richard, revived sufficiently to pour out her wrongs into his ear.
'What, I ask myself,' she said dramatically, 'has become of that tiresome girl? Into what company may she have fallen? I see that you, Sir Richard, are a person of sensibility. Conceive of my feelings! What—I say, what if my unfortunate niece should have fallen into the hands of some Man?'
'What indeed!' said Sir Richard.
'She must marry him. When I think of the care, the hopes, the maternal fondness I have lavished—but it is ever so! There is no gratitude in the world to-day.'
Upon this gloomy reflection, she ordered her chaise to be got ready to bear her instantly to Chippenham. She would have remained at Queen Charlton for the night, she explained, only that she suspected the sheets.
Sir Richard, having seen her off, walked down the street, to cool his heated brow, and to consider the intricacies of his position.
It was while he was absent that Miss Creed and the Honourable Beverley Brandon, approaching the George from widely divergent angles, but with identical circumspection, came face to face in the entrance-parlour.
They eyed one another. A few moments' conversation with the tapster had put Beverley in possession of information which he found sufficiently intriguing to make him run the risk of perhaps encountering Captain Trimble in entering the inn, and prosecuting further enquiries about Sir Richard Wyndham. Sir Richard, the tapster had told him, was putting up at the George with his nephew.
Now, Sir Richard's nephew, as Beverley knew well, was a lusty young gentleman not yet breeched. He did not mention this circumstance in the tapster, but on hearing that the mysterious nephew in question was a youth in his teens, he pricked up his ears, and penetrated from the tap room into the main parlour of the inn.
Here Pen, entering the George cautiously from the stableyard, came plump upon him. Never having seen his face, she did not at once recognize him, but when, after an intent stare, he moved towards her, saying with a slight stammer: 'How d-do you do? I think you m-must be Wyndham's n-nephew?' she had no doubt of his identity.
She was no fool, and she realized at once that anyone well-acquainted with Sir Richard must be aware that she was not his nephew. She replied guardedly: 'Well, I call him my uncle, because he is so much older than I am, but in point of fact we are cousins only. Third cousins,' she added, making the relationship as remote as she could.
A smile which she did not quite like lingered on Beverley's rather slack mouth. Mentally, he was reviewing Sir Richard's family, but he said with great affability: 'Oh, indeed? Ch-charmed to make your acquaintance, Mr-er-er?'
'Brown,' supplied Pen, regretting that she had not thought to provide herself with a more unusual surname.
'Brown,' bowed Beverley, his smile widening. 'It is a great p-pleasure to me to m-meet any connection of W-Wyndham's. In such a remote spot, too! Now d-do tell me! What b-brings you here?'
'Family affairs,' answered Pen promptly. 'Uncle Richard—Cousin Richard, I mean, only I have always been in the way of calling him uncle, you understand—very kindly undertook to come with me.'
'So it was on y-your account that he came to Queen Ch-Charlton!' said Beverley. 'That is most interesting!' His eyes ran over her in a way that made her feel profoundly ill-at-ease. 'M-most interesting!' he repeated. 'P-pray present my ccompliments to Wyndham, and tell him that I perfectly understand his reasons for choosing such a secluded locality!'
He bowed himself out with a flourish, leaving Pen in a state of considerable trepidation. In the tap room, he called for paper, ink, a pen, and some brandy, and sat down at a table in one corner to write a careful letter to Sir Richard. It took time, for he was not apt with a pen, and much brandy, but it was finished at last to his satisfaction. He looked round rather owlishly for wafers, but the tapster had brought him none, so he folded the note into a screw, wrote Sir Richard's name on it in a flourishing scrawl, and told the tapster to give it to Sir Richard upon his return to the inn. After that he went away, not quite steadily, but full of chuckling glee at his own ingenuity.
The tapster, who was busy serving drinks, left the twisted note on the bar while he hurried to the other end of the room with beer for a clamorous party of country-men. It was here that Captain Trimble, coming into the taproom from the stableyard, found it.
Captain Trimble, who had spent a fruitless day in attempting to discover some trace of Jimmy Yarde in Bristol, was hot, and tired, and in no very good temper. He sat down on a high stool at the bar, and began to wipe his face with a large handkerchief. It was as he was restoring the handkerchief to his pocket that the note, and its superscription, caught his eye. He was well-acquainted with Mr Brandon's handwriting, and he recognized it at once. It did not at first surprise him that Mr Brandon should have written to Sir Richard Wyndham; he supposed them to be of the same fashionable set. But as he looked idly down at the screw of paper thoughts of the wild-goose chase upon which Sir Richard had sent him took strong possession of his mind, and he wondered, not for the first time during that exasperating day, whether Sir Richard could have had a motive in dispatching him to Bristol. The note began to assume a sinister aspect; suspicion darkened the already warm colour in the Captain's cheeks; and after staring at the note for a minute, he cast a quick look round, saw that no one was watching him, and deftly palmed it.
The tapster came back to the bar, but by the time he had recollected the note, Captain Trimble had retired to a high-backed settle by the empty fireplace, and was calling for a can of ale. At a convenient moment, he unscrewed the twist of paper, and read its contents.
'My very dear Richard,' had written Mr Brandon, I am desolated to find that you have gone out. I should like to continue our conversation. When I tell you that I have been privileged to meet your nephew, my dear Richard, I feel that you will appreciate the wisdom of meeting me again. You would not wish me to talk, but a paltry twelve thousand is not enough to close my mouth, which, however, I am willing to do, tho' not for a less sum than I have it in my power to obtain by Other Means, Should you wish to discuss this delicate matter, I shall be in the spinney at ten o'clock this evening. If you do not come there, I shall understand that you have Withdrawn your Objection to my disposing of Certain Property as I choose, and I fancy that it would be Unwise of you to mention our dealings in this matter to anyone, either now or later.'
Captain Trimble read this missive twice before folding it again into its original twist. The mention of Pen he found obscure, and of no particular interest. There was apparently a disreputable secret in some way connected with Sir Richard's young nephew, but the Captain did not immediately perceive what profit was to be made out of it. Far more arresting was the thinly veiled reference to the Brandon necklace. The Captain's eyes smouldered as he thought this over, and his massive jaw worked a little. He had suspected Beverley's good faith from the moment that Jimmy Yarde had been thrust on him as an accomplice. The matter seemed as clear as crystal now. Beverley and Yarde had hatched a plot to cheat him of his share in the fortune, and when Beverley had been raving against him for blundering—very convincingly he had raved too—he had actually had the necklace in his pocket. Well, Mr Brandon would have to learn that it was not wise to try to bubble Horace Trimble, and still less wise to leave unsealed notes lying about in a common taproom. As for Sir Richard, the Captain found his part in these tortuous proceedings very difficult to fathom. He seemed to know something about the diamonds, but he was far too wealthy a man, the Captain considered, to have the least interest in their worth in terms of guineas. But Sir Richard had undoubtedly meddled in the affair, and the Captain wished with all his heart that he could discover a way to pay him in full for his interference.
Captain Trimble was naturally a man of violence, but although he would have liked very much to spoil Sir Richard's handsome face, he wasted no more than a couple of minutes over this pleasing dream. Sir Richard, if it came to fisticuffs, would enjoy the encounter far more than would his assailant. A more determined assault, on a dark night, by a couple of stout men armed with clubs, might have a better chance of success, but even this scheme had a drawback. Sir Richard had been set upon twice before, by hardy rogues who planned to rob him. He had not been robbed, and he had not been attacked again. He was marked down by every cut-throat and robber in the Rogues' Calendar as dangerous, one who carried pistols, and could draw and fire with a speed and a deadly accuracy which made him a most undesirable man to molest.
Regretfully; the Captain decided that Sir Richard must be left alone, for the present, at all events.
By this time the tapster had discovered the loss of Mr Brandon's note. Everyone in the room disclaimed all knowledge of its whereabouts. Captain Trimble drained his can, and carried it over to the bar. As he set it down, he said: 'Isn't that a bit of paper I see?'
No one could see anything, but that might have been because the Captain bent so quickly to pick it up. When he straightened himself, the screw of paper was between his fingers. The tapster took it with a word of thanks, and gave it to one of the waiters, who had come into the taproom for a pint of burgundy, and told him to deliver it to Sir Richard. Captain Trimble, quite as well-pleased as Beverley had been, betook himself to the coffee-room, and ordered a sustaining meal.
Sir Richard, meanwhile, had returned to the inn. He found Pen awaiting him in the parlour, curled up in a big chair and eating an apple. 'This passion for munching raw fruit!' he remarked. 'You look a very urchin.'
She twinkled at him. 'Well, I am hungry. Did you—did you have a pleasant day with my Aunt Almeria, sir?'
'I hope with all my heart,' said Sir Richard, eyeing her with some severity, 'that you spent the day in the greatest possible discomfort. I wish it had rained.'
'I didn't. I visited my home, and I went to all the particular places Piers and I used to hide in, when people wanted us to do our lessons. Only I hadn't anything to eat.'
'I am glad,' said Sir Richard. 'Do you know that I have not only found myself in a position where I was forced to lie, and dissemble, and practise the most shocking deceit, but I have also been obliged to consort for five hours with one of the most commonplace young cubs it has ever been my ill-fortune to meet?'
'I knew Fred would come with my aunt! Doesn't he look just like a fish, sir?'
'Yes, a hake. But you cannot divert me from what I wish to say. Half an hour's conversation with your aunt has convinced me that you are an unprincipled brat.'
'Did she say unkind things of me?' Miss Creed wrinkled her brow. 'I don't think I am unprincipled, precisely.'
'You are a menace to all law-abiding and respectable citizens,' said Sir Richard.
She seemed gratified. 'I didn't think I was as important as that.'
'Look what you have done to me!' said Sir Richard.
'Yes, but I don't think you are very law-abiding or respectable,' objected Pen.
'I was once, but it seems a long time ago.'
She finished her apple. 'Well, I am sorry you are feeling cross, for I think I should tell you something which you may not be pleased about.'
He looked at her with misgiving. 'Let me know the worst!'
'It was the stammering-man,' said Pen, not very lucidly. 'Of course, I quite see that I should have been more careful.'
'You mean Beverley Brandon. What has he been doing?'
'Well, you see, he came here. And just at that very same moment, I chanced to walk into the inn, and—and we met.'
'When was this?'
'Oh, not long ago! You were gone out. Only he seemed to know me.'
'Seemed to know you?'
'Well, he said surely I must be your nephew,' Pen explained.
Sir Richard had been listening to her with a gathering frown. He said now, with a grim note which she had not before heard in his voice: 'Beverley knows very well that the only nephew I have is a child in short petticoats.'
'Oh, have you got a nephew?' enquired Pen, diverted.
'Yes. Never mind that. What did you reply?'
'Well, I think I was quite clever,' said Pen hopefully. Naturally, I knew who he must be, as soon as he spoke; and I guessed, of course, that he must know I am not your nephew. Because even if some people think I have no ingenuity, I am not at all stupid,' she added, with a darkling look.
'Does that rankle?' His countenance had relaxed a little. 'Never mind! go on!'
'I said that in point of fact you were not my uncle, but I called you so because you were a great deal older than I. I said that you were my third cousin. Then he asked me why we had come to Queen Charlton, and I said it was on account of family affairs, though I would rather have pointed out that it was extremely ill-bred and inquisitive of him to ask me such questions. And after that he went away.'
'Did he indeed? Did he say what had brought him here in the first place?'
'No. But he gave me a message for you, which I did not quite like.'
'Well?'
'It sounded sinister to me,' said Pen, preparing him for the worst.
'I can well believe it.'
'And the more I think of it the more sinister it appears to me. He said I must present his compliments to you, and tell you that he perfectly understands your reason for coming to such a secluded spot.'
'The devil!' said Sir Richard.
'I was afraid you would not be excessively pleased,' Pen said anxiously. 'Do you suppose that it means that he knows who I am?'
'Not that, no,' Sir Richard replied.
'Perhaps,' suggested Pen, 'he guessed that I am not a boy?'
'Perhaps.'
She thought the matter over. 'Well, I don't see what else he could possibly have meant. But Jimmy Yarde never suspected me, and I conversed with him far more than I did with this disagreeable stammering-man. How very unfortunate it is that we should have met someone who knows you well!'
'I beg your pardon?' said Sir Richard, putting up his glass.
She looked innocently up at him. 'On account of his being aware that you have no nephew or cousin like me, I mean.'
'Oh!' said Sir Richard, lowering the glass. 'I see. Don't let it worry you!'
'Well, it does worry me, because I see now that I have been imprudent. I should not have let you come with me. It has very likely placed you in an awkward situation.'
'That aspect of it had not occurred to me,' said Sir Richard, faintly smiling. 'The imprudence was mine. I ought to have handed you over to your aunt at our first meeting.'
'Do you wish you had?' asked Pen wistfully.
He looked down at her for an instant. 'No.'
'Well, I'm glad, because if you had tried to, I would have run away from you.' She lifted her chin from her cupped hands. 'If you are not sorry to be here, do not let us give it another thought! It is so very fatiguing to go on being sorry about something which one has done. Did you order any dinner, sir?'
'I did. Duck and peas.'
'Good!' said Pen, with profound satisfaction. 'Where has Aunt Almeria gone, do you suppose?'
'To Chippenham, and then to Cousin Jane.'
'To Cousin Jane? Good gracious, why?'
'To see whether you have taken refuge with her, I imagine.'
'With Cousin Jane!' Pen exclaimed. 'Why, she is the most odious old woman, and takes snuff!'
Sir Richard, who had just opened his own box, paused. 'Er—do you consider that an odious habit? he asked.
'In a female, I do. Besides, she spills it On her clothes. Ugh! Oh, I did not mean you, sir!' she added, with a ripple of sudden laughter. 'You do it with such an air!'
'Thank you!' he said.
A waiter came in to lay the covers for dinner, and presented a small, twisted note to Sir Richard on a large tray.
He picked it up unhurriedly, and spread it open. Pen, anxiously watching him, could detect nothing in his face but boredom. He read the note through to the end, and consigning it to his pocket, glanced towards Pen. 'Let me see: what were we discussing?'
'Snuff,' replied Pen, in a hollow voice.
'Ah, yes! I myself use King's Martinique, but there are many who consider it a trifle light in character.'
She returned a mechanical answer, and upon the waiter's leaving the room, interrupted Sir Richard's description of the proper way to preserve snuff in good condition, by demanding impetuously: 'Who was it from, sir?'
'Don't be inquisitive!' said Sir Richard calmly.
'You can't deceive me! I feel sure it was from that hateful man.'
'It was, but there is no occasion for you to trouble your head over it, believe me.'
'Only tell me! Does he mean to do you some mischief?'
'Certainly not. It would, in all events, be a task quite beyond his power.'
'I feel very uneasy.'
'So I perceive. You will be the better for your dinner.'
The waiter came in with the duck at that opportune moment, and set it upon the table. Pen was, in fact, so hungry that her thoughts were instantly diverted. She made a very good dinner, and did not again refer to the note.
Sir Richard, maintaining a flow of easy conversation, seemed to be wholly devoid of care, but the note had annoyed him. There was very little fear, he considered, of Beverley's being able to harm Miss Creed, since he could have no knowledge of her identity; and his veiled threat of exposing Sir Richard was a matter of indifference to that gentleman. But he would certainly meet Beverley in the spinney at the proposed hour, for it now became more than ever necessary to despatch him to London immediately. While he remained in the neighbourhood there would be no question of delivering Pen into Lady Luttrell's care, and although Sir Richard had not the least desire to relinquish his self-appointed guardianship of that enterprising damsel, he was perfectly well aware that he must do so, and without any loss of time.
Accordingly, he sent her to bed shortly after half-past-nine, telling her that if she were not tired she deserved to be. She went without demur, so probably her day spent in the open had made her sleepy. He waited until a few minutes before ten o'clock, and then took his hat and walking-cane, and strolled out of the inn.
There was a full moon, and not a cloud to be seen in the sky. Sir Richard had no difficulty in seeing his way, and soon came to the track through the wood. It was darker here, for the trees held out the moonlight. A rabbit scuttled across the path, an owl hooted somewhere at hand, and there were little rustlings in the undergrowth, but Sir Richard was not of a nervous disposition, and did not find these sounds in any way disturbing.
But he was hardly prepared to come upon a lady lying stretched across the path, immediately round a bend in it. This sight was, indeed, so unexpected that it brought him up short. The lady did not move, but lay in a crumpled heap of pale muslin and darker cloak. Sir Richard, recovering from his momentary surprise, strode forward, and dropped on to his knee beside her. It was too dark under the trees for him to be able to distinguish her features clearly, but he thought she was young. She was not dead, as he had at first feared, but in a deep faint. He began to chafe her hands, and had just bethought him of the tiny stream which he had observed that morning, when she showed signs of returning consciousness. He raised her in his arms, hearing a sigh flutter past her lips. A moan succeeded the sigh; she said something he could not catch, and began weakly to cry.
'Don't cry!' Sir Richard said. 'You are quite safe.'
She caught her breath on a sob, and stiffened in his hold. He felt her little hands close on his arm. Then she began to tremble.
'No, there is nothing to frighten you,' he said in his cool way. 'You will be better directly.'
'Oh!' The exclamation sounded terrified. 'Who are you? Oh, let me go!'
'Certainly I will let you go, but are you able to stand yet? You do not know me, but I am perfectly harmless, I assure you.'
She made a feeble attempt to struggle up, and succeeded only in crouching on the path in a woebegone huddle, saying through her sobs: 'I must go! Oh, I must go! I ought not to have come!'
'That I can well believe,' said Sir Richard, still on his knee beside her. 'Why did you come? Or is that an impertinent question?'
It had the effect of redoubling her sobs. She buried her face in her hands, shuddering, and rocking herself to and fro, and gasping out unintelligible phrases.
'Well!' said a voice behind Sir Richard.
He looked quickly over his shoulder. 'Pen! What are you doing here?'
'I followed you,' replied Pen, looking critically down at the weeping girl. 'I brought a stout stick too, because I thought you were going to meet the odious stammering-man, and I feel sure he means to do you a mischief. Who is this?'
'I haven't the slightest idea,' replied Sir Richard. 'And presently I shall have something to say to you on the subject of this idiotic escapade of yours! My good child, can't you stop crying?'
'What is she doing here?' asked Pen, unmoved by his strictures.
'Heaven knows! I found her lying on the path. How does one make a female stop crying?'
'I shouldn't think you could. She's going to have a fit of the vapours, I expect. And I do not see why you should hug people, if you don't know who they are.'
'I was not hugging her.'
'It looked like it to me,' argued Pen.
'I suppose,' said Sir Richard sardonically, 'you would have had me step over her, and walk on?'
'Yes, I would,' replied Pen promptly.
'Don't be a little fool! The girl had fainted.'
'Oh!' Pen moved forward. 'I wonder what made her do that? You know, it all seems extremely odd to me.'
'It seems quite as odd to me, let me tell you.' He laid his hand on the sobbing girl's shoulder. 'Come! You will not help matters by crying. Can't you tell me what has happened to upset you so?'
The girl made a convulsive effort to choke back her hysterical tears, and managed to utter: 'I was so frightened!"
'Yes, that I had realized. What frightened you?'
'There was a man!' gasped the girl. 'And I hid, and then another man came, and they began to quarrel, and I dared not move for fear they should hear me, and the big one hit the other, and he fell down and lay still, and the big one took something out of his pocket, and went away, and oh, oh, he passed so close I c-could have touched him only by stretching out my hand! The other man never moved, and I was so frightened I ran, everything went black, and I think I fainted.'
'Ran away?' repeated Pen in disgusted accents. 'What a poor-spirited thing to do! Didn't you go to help the man who was knocked down?'
'Oh no, no, no!' shuddered the girl.
'I must say, I don't think you deserve to have such an adventure. And if I were you I wouldn't continue sitting in the middle of the path. It isn't at all helpful, and it makes you look very silly.'
This severe speech had the effect of angering the girl. She reared up her head, and exclaimed: 'How dare you? You are the rudest young man I ever met in my life!'
Sir Richard put his hand under her elbow, and assisted her to her feet. 'Ah—accept my apologies on my nephew's behalf, ma'am!' he said, with only the faintest quiver in his voice. 'A sadly ill-conditioned boy! May I suggest to you that you should rest on this bank for a few moments, while I go to investigate the—er—scene of the assault you so graphically described? My nephew—who has, you perceive, provided himself with a stout stick—will charge himself with your safety.'
'I'll come with you,' said Pen mutinously.
'You will—for once in your life—do as you are told,' said Sir Richard, and, lowering the unknown on to the bank, strode on down the track towards the clearing in the wood.
Here the moonlight bathed the ground in its cold silver light. Sir Richard had no doubt that he would find Beverley Brandon, either stunned, or recovering from the effects of the blow which had felled him, but as he stepped into the clearing he saw not only one man lying still on the ground, but a second on his knees beside him.
Sir Richard trod softly, and it was not until he had approached to within a few feet of the little group that the kneeling man heard his footsteps, and looked quickly over his shoulder. The moonlight drained the world of colour, but even allowing for this the face turned towards Sir Richard was unnaturally pallid. It was the face of a very young man, and perfectly strange to Sir Richard.
'Who are you?' The question was shot out in a hushed, rather scared voice. The young man started to his feet, and took up an instinctively defensive pose.
'I doubt whether my name will convey very much to you, but, for what it is worth, it is Wyndham. What has happened here?'
The boy seemed quite distracted, and replied in a shaken tone: 'I don't know. I found him here—like this. I—I think he's dead!'
'Nonsense!' said Sir Richard, putting him out of his way, and in his turn kneeling beside Beverley's inanimate body. There was a bruise on the livid brow, and when Sir Richard raised Beverley his head fell back in a way that told its own tale rather horribly. Sir Richard saw the tree-stump, and realized that Beverley's head must have struck it. He laid his body down again, and said without the least vestige of emotion: 'You are perfectly right. His neck is broken.'
The boy dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped his brow with it. 'My God, who did it?—I—I didn't, you know!'
'I don't suppose you did,' Sir Richard replied, rising to his feet, and dusting the knees of his breeches.
'But it's the most shocking thing! He was staying with me, sir!'
'Oh!' said Sir Richard, favouring him with a long, penetrating look.
'He's Beverley Brandon—Lord Saar's younger son!'
'I know very well who he is. You, I apprehend, are Mr Piers Luttrell?"
'Yes. Yes, I am. I knew him up at Oxford. Not very well, because I—well, to tell you the truth, I never liked him much. But a week ago he arrived at my home. He had been visiting friends, I think. I don't know. But of course I—that is, my mother and I—asked him to stay, and he did. He has not been quite well—seemed to be in need of rest, and—and country air. Indeed, I can't conceive how he comes to be here now, for he retired to his room with one of his sick headaches. At least, that was what he told my mother.'
'Then you did not come here in search of him?'
'No, no! I came— The fact is, I just came out to enjoy a stroll in the moonlight,' replied Piers, in a hurry.
'I see.' There was a dry note in Sir Richard's voice.
'Why are you here?' demanded Piers.
'For the same reason,' Sir Richard answered.
'But you know Brandon!'
'That circumstance does not, however, make me his murderer.'
'Oh no! I did not mean—but it seems so strange that you should both be in Queen Charlton!'
'I thought it tiresome, myself. My errand to Queen Charlton did not in any way concern Beverley Brandon.'
'Of course not! I didn't suppose—Sir, since you didn't kill him, and I didn't, who—who did, do you suppose? For he did not merely trip and fall, did he? There is that bruise on his forehead, and he was lying face upwards, just as you saw him. Someone struck him down!'
'Yes, I think someone struck him down,' agreed Sir Richard.
'I suppose you do not know who it might have been, sir?'
'I wonder?' Sir Richard said thoughtfully.
Piers waited, but as Sir Richard said no more, but stood looking frowningly down at Beverley's body, he blurted out: 'What ought I to do? Really, I do not know! I have no experience in such matters. Perhaps you could advise me?'
'I do not pretend to any very vast experience myself, but I suggest that you should go home.'
'But we can't leave him here—can we?'
'No, we can't do that. I will inform the magistrate that there is—er—a corpse in the wood. No doubt he will attend to it.'
'Yes, but I don't wish to run away, you know,' Piers objected. 'It is the most devilish, awkward situation, but of course I don't dream of leaving you to—to explain it all to the magistrate. I shall have to say that it was I who found the body.'
Sir Richard, who knew that the affair was one of extreme delicacy, and who had been wondering for several minutes in what way it could be handled so as to spare the Brandons as much humiliation as possible, did not feel that the entry of Piers Luttrell into the proceedings would facilitate his task. He cast another of his searching looks over the young man, and said: 'Your doing so would serve no useful purpose, I believe. You had better leave it to me.'
'You know something about it!'
'Yes, I do. I am on terms of—er—considerable intimacy with the Brandons, and I know a good deal about Beverley's activities. There is likely to be a peculiarly distasteful scandal arising out of this murder.'
Piers nodded. 'I was afraid of that. You know, sir, he was not at all the thing, and he knew some devilish odd people. A man came up to the house, enquiring for him only yesterday—a seedy sort of bully: I dare say you may be familiar with the type. Beverley did not like it above half, I could see.'
'Were you privileged to meet this man?'
'Well, I saw him: I didn't exchange two words with him. The servant came to tell Beverley that a Captain Trimble had called to see him, and Beverley was so much put out that I—well, I fear I did rather wonder what was in the wind.'
'Ah!' said Sir Richard. 'The fact that you have met Trimble may—or may not—prove useful. Yes, I think you had better go home, and say nothing about this. No doubt the news of Beverley's death will be conveyed to you tomorrow morning.'
'But what shall I tell the constable, sir?'
'Whatever he asks you,' replied Sir Richard.
'Shall I say that I found Beverley here, with you?' asked Piers doubtfully.
'I hardly think that he will ask you that question.'
'But will he not wonder how it came about that I did not miss Beverley?'
'Did you not say that Beverley gave it out that he was retiring to bed? Why should you miss him?'
'Tomorrow morning?'
'Yes, I think you might miss him at the breakfast-table,' conceded Sir Richard.
'I see. Well, if you feel it to be right, sir, I—I own I would rather not divulge that I was in the wood tonight. But what must I say if I am asked if I know you?'
'You don't know me.'
'N-no. No, I don't, of course,' said Piers, apparently cheered by this reflection.
'That is a pleasure in store for you. I came into this neighbourhood for the purpose of—er—making your acquaintance, but this seems hardly the moment to enter upon a matter which I have reason to suspect may prove extremely complicated.'
'You came to see me?' said Piers, astonished. 'How can this be?'
'If,' said Sir Richard, 'you will come to see me at the "George" tomorrow—a very natural action on your part, in view of my discovery of your guest's corpse—I will tell you just why I came to Queen Charlton in search of you.'
'I am sure I am honoured—but I cannot conceive what your business with me may be, sir!'
'That,' said Sir Richard, 'does not surprise me nearly as much as my business is likely to surprise you, Mr Luttrell!' |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 9 | Having got rid of Piers Luttrell, who, after peering at his watch surreptitiously, and several times looking about him as though in the expectation of seeing someone hiding amongst the trees, went off, rather relieved but much bewildered, Sir Richard walked away to rejoin Pen and the unknown lady. He found only Pen, seated on the bank with an air of aloof virtue, her hands folded primly on her knees. He paused, looking her over with a comprehending eye. 'And where,' he asked in conversational tones, 'is your companion?'
'She chose to go home,' responded Pen. 'I dare say she grew tired of waiting for you to come back.'
'Ah, no doubt! Did you by any chance, suggest to her that she should do so?'
'No, because it was not at all necessary. She was very anxious to go. She said she wished she had not come.'
'Did she tell you why she had come?'
'No. I asked her, of course, but she is such a silly little missish thing that she would do nothing but cry, and say she was a wicked girl. Do you know what I think, Richard?'
'Probably.'
'Well, it's my belief she came to meet someone. She seems to me exactly the sort of female who would feel romantic just because there is a full moon. Besides, why else should she be here at this hour?'
'Why indeed?' agreed Sir Richard. 'I apprehend that you have little sympathy to spare for such folly?'
'None at all,' said Pen. 'In fact, I think it's silly, besides being improper.'
'You are severe!'
'I can tell by your voice that you are laughing at me. I expect you are thinking of my climbing out of a window. But I was not going to meet a lover by moonlight! Such stuff!'
'Fustian,' nodded Sir Richard. 'Did she disclose the identity of her lover?'
'No, but she said her own name was Lydia Daubenay. And no sooner had she told me that than she went off into another taking, and said she was distracted, and wished she had not told me. Really, I was quite glad when she decided to go home without waiting for you.'
'Yes, I had rather gathered the impression that her company was not agreeable to you. I suppose it hardly signifies. She did not appear to me to be the kind of young woman who could be trusted to bear a still tongue in her head.'
'Well, I don't know,' said Pen thoughtfully. 'She was so frightened I quite think she may not say a word about the adventure. I have been considering the matter, and it seems to me that she must be in love with someone whom her parents do not wish her to marry.'
'That,' said Sir Richard, 'seems to be a fair conclusion.'
'So that I shouldn't be at all surprised if she conceals the fact that she was in the wood tonight. By the way, was it the stammering-man?'
'It was, and Miss Daubenay was right in her suspicion: he is dead.'
Miss Creed accepted this with fortitude. 'Well, if he is, I can tell you who killed him. That girl told me all over again how it happened, and there is no doubt that the other man was Captain Trimble. And he did it to get the necklace!'
'Admirable!' said Sir Richard.
'It is as plain as a pikestaff. And now that I come to think of it, it may very likely be all for the best. Of course, I am sorry for the stammering-man, but you can't deny that he was a very disagreeable person. Besides, I know perfectly well that he was threatening you. That is why I followed you. Now we are rid of the whole affair!'
'Not quite, I fear. You must not think that I am unmoved by your heroic behaviour, but I could wish that you had gone to bed, Pen.'
'Yes, but I find that most unreasonable of you,' objected Pen. 'It seems to me that you want to keep all the adventure for yourself!'
'I appreciate your feelings,' said Sir Richard, 'but I would point out to you that your situation is a trifle—shall we say irregular?—and that we have been at considerable pains to excite no undue attention. Hence that abominable stagecoach. The last thing in the world I desire is to see you brought forward as a witness to this affair. If Miss Daubenay does not disclose her share in it, you may yet escape notice, but, to tell you the truth, I place little dependence on Miss Daubenay's discretion.'
'Oh!' said Pen, digesting this. 'You think there may be a little awkwardness if it should be discovered that I am not a boy? Perhaps we had better leave Queen Charlton?'
'No, that would indeed be fatal. We are now committed to this adventure. I am going to inform the local magistrate that I have discovered a corpse in this spinney. As you have encountered Miss Daubenay, upon whose discretion we have decided to place no reliance, I shall mention the fact that you accompanied me upon my evening stroll, and we must trust that no particular notice will be taken of you. By the way, brat, I think you had better become my young cousin—my remote young cousin.'
'Ah!' said Miss Creed, gratified. 'My own story!'
'Your own story.'
'Well, I must say I am glad you don't wish to run away,' she confided. 'You cannot conceive how much I am enjoying myself! I dare say it is otherwise with you, but, you see, I have had such a very dull life up till now! And I'll tell you another thing, Richard: naturally I am very anxious to find Piers, but I think we had better not send any word to him until we have finished this adventure.'
He was silent for a moment. 'Are you very anxious to find Piers?' he asked at last.
'Of course I am! Why, that is why we came!'
'Very true. I was forgetting. You will see Piers tomorrow morning, I fancy.'
She got up from the bank. 'I shall see him tomorrow? But how do you know?'
'I should have mentioned to you that I have just had the felicity of meeting him.'
'Piers?' she exclaimed. 'Here? In the wood?'
'Over Beverley Brandon's body.'
'I thought I heard voices! But how did he come to be here? And why didn't you bring him to me directly?'
Sir Richard took time over his answer. 'You see, I was under the impression that Miss Daubenay was still with you,' he explained.
'Oh, I see!' said Pen innocently. 'Yes, indeed, you did quite right! We don't want her to be included in our adventure. But did you tell Piers about me?'
'The moment did not seem to be propitious,' confessed Sir Richard. 'I told him to come to visit me at the "George" tomorrow morning, and on no account to divulge his presence in the wood tonight.'
'What a surprise it will be to him when he finds me at the "George"!' said Pen gleefully.
'Yes,' said Sir Richard. 'I think it will be—a surprise to him.'
She fell into step beside him on their way back to the road. 'I am glad you did not tell him! I suppose he had come to look for the stammering-man? I can't conceive how he could have had such a disagreeable person to visit him!'
Sir Richard, who had rarely, during the twenty-nine years of his existence, found himself at a loss, now discovered that he was totally incapable of imparting his own suspicions to his trusting companion. Apparently, it had not occurred to her that the sentiments of her old playfellow might have undergone a change; and so fixed in her mind was a five-year-old pact of betrothal that it had not entered her head to question either its durable qualities, or its desirability. She evidently considered herself plighted to Piers Luttrell, a circumstance which had no doubt had much to do with her friendly acceptance of Sir Richard's companionship. Phrases of warning half-formed themselves in Sir Richard's brain, and were rejected. Piers would have to do his explaining; Sir Richard could only hope that upon coming face to face with him after a lapse of years, Pen might discover that as he had outgrown a childhood's fancy, so too had she.
They entered the George together. Pen went up to bed at a nod from Sir Richard, but Sir Richard rang the bell for a servant. A sleepy waiter came in answer to the summons, and, upon being asked for the direction of the nearest magistrate, said that Sir Jasper Luttrell was the nearest, but was away from home. He knew of no other, so Sir Richard desired him to fetch the landlord to him, and sat down to write a short note to whom it might concern.
When the landlord came into the parlour, Sir Richard was shaking the sand off the single sheet of paper. He folded it, and sealed it with a wafer, and upon being told that Mr John Philips, of Whitchurch, was the nearest available magistrate, wrote this gentleman's name on the note. As he wrote, he said in his calm way: 'I shall be obliged to you if you will have this letter conveyed directly to Mr Philips.'
'Tonight, sir?'
'Tonight. Mr Philips will, I imagine, come back with your messenger. If he asks for me, show him into this room. Ah, and landlord!'
'Sir?'
'A bowl of rum punch. I will mix it myself.'
'Yes, sir! Immediately, sir!' said the landlord, relieved to receive such a normal command.
He lingered for a moment, trying to summon up sufficient resolution to ask the fine London gentleman why he wanted to see a magistrate thus urgently. Sir Richard's quizzing-glass came up, and the landlord withdrew in haste. The waiter would have followed him, but was detained by Sir Richard's uplifted forefinger.
'One moment! Who gave you the note which you delivered to me this evening?'
'It was Jem, sir—the tapster. It was when I went up to the bar for a pint of burgundy for a gentleman dining in the coffee-room that Jem gave it to me. It was Captain Trimble who picked it up off the ground, where it was a-laying. It got swep' off the bar, I dessay, sir, the taproom being crowded at the time, and Jem with his hands full.'
'Thank you,' said Sir Richard. 'That is all.'
The waiter went away considerably mystified. Sir Richard, on the other hand, felt that the mystery had been satisfactorily explained, and sat down to await the landlord's return with the ingredients for a bowl of punch.
Mr Philips' residence was situated some five miles from Queen Charlton, and it was consequently some time before the clatter of horses' hooves in the street heralded his arrival. Sir Richard was squeezing the lemon into the punch bowl when he was ushered into the parlour, and looked up fleetingly to say: 'Ah, how do you do? Mr Philips, I apprehend?'
Mr Philips was a grizzled gentleman with a harassed frown, and a slight paunch.
'Your servant, sir! Have I the honour of addressing Sir Richard Wyndham?'
'Mine, sir, is the honour,' said Sir Richard absently, intent upon his punch.
'Sir,' said Mr Philips, 'your very extraordinary communication—I may say, your unprecedented disclosure—has, as you perceive, brought me immediately to enquire into this incredible affair!'
'Very proper,' said Sir Richard. 'You will wish to visit the scene of the crime, I imagine. I can give you the direction, but no doubt the village constable is familiar with the locality. The body, Mr Philips, is—or was—lying in the clearing in the middle of the spinney, a little way down the road.'
'Do you mean to tell me, sir, that this story is true?' demanded the magistrate.
'Certainly it is true. Dear me, did you suppose me to be so heartless as to drag you out at this hour on a fool's errand? Are you in favour of adding the juice of one or of two lemons?'
Mr Philips, whose eyes had been critically observing Sir Richard's proceedings, said, without thinking: 'One! One is enough!'
'I feel sure you are right,' said Sir Richard.
'You know, sir, I must ask you some questions about this extraordinary affair!' said Philips, recollecting his errand.
'So you shall, sir, so you shall. Would you like to ask them now, or after you have disposed of the body?'
'I shall first repair to the scene of the murder,' declared Philips.
'Good!' said Sir Richard. 'I will engage to have the punch ready against your return.'
Mr Philips felt that this casual way of treating the affair was quite out of order, but the prospect of returning to a bowl of hot rum punch was so agreeable that he decided to overlook any trifling irregularity. When he returned to the inn, half an hour later, he was feeling chilled, for it was now past midnight and he had not taken his overcoat with him. Sir Richard had caused a fire to be kindled in the wainscoted parlour, and from the bowl on the table, which he was stirring with a long-handled spoon, there arose a very fragrant and comforting aroma. Mr Philips rubbed his hands together, and could not refrain from ejaculating: 'Ha!'
Sir Richard looked up, and smiled. His smile had won more hearts than Mr Philips', and it had a visible effect on that gentleman.
'Well, well, well! I won't deny that's a very welcome smell, Sir Richard! A fire, too! Upon my word, I'm glad to see it! Gets chilly at night, very chilly! A bad business, sir! a very bad business!'
Sir Richard ladled the steaming brew into two glasses, and gave one to the magistrate. 'Draw up a chair to the fire, Mr Philips. It is, as you say, a very bad business. I should tell you that I am intimately acquainted with the family of the deceased.'
Mr Philips fished Sir Richard's note out of his pocket. 'Yes, yes, just as I supposed, sir. I do not know how you would otherwise have furnished me with the poor man's name. You know him, in fact. Precisely! He was travelling in your company, perhaps?'
'No,' said Sir Richard, taking a chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. 'He was staying with a friend who lives in the neighbourhood. The name was, I think, Luttrell.'
'Indeed! This becomes more and more— But pray continue, sir! You were not, then, together?'
'No, nothing of the sort. I came into the west country in family affairs. I need not burden you with them, I think.'
'Quite, quite! Family affairs: yes! Go on, sir! How came you to discover Mr Brandon's body?'
'Oh, by accident! But it will be better, perhaps, if I recount my share in this affair from its start.'
'Certainly! Yes! Pray do so, sir! This is a remarkably good bowl of punch, I may say.'
'I am generally thought to have something of a knack with a punch bowl,' bowed Sir Richard. 'To go back, then, to the start! You have no doubt heard, Mr Philips, of the Brandon diamonds?'
From the startled expression in the magistrate's eyes, and the slight dropping of his jaw, it was apparent that he had not. He said: 'Diamonds? Really, I fear— No, I must confess that I had not heard of the Brandon diamonds.'
'Then, I should explain that they make up a certain famous necklace, worth, I dare say, anything you like.'
'Upon my word! An heirloom! Yes, yes, but in what way—'
'While on my way to Bristol with a young relative of mine, a slight accident befell our coach, and we were forced to put up for the night at a small inn near Wroxhall. There, sir, I encountered an individual who seemed to me—but I am not very well-versed in these matters—a somewhat questionable character. How questionable I did not know until the following morning, when a Bow Street Runner arrived at the inn.'
'Good God, sir! This is the most— But I interrupt you!'
'Not at all,' said Sir Richard politely. 'I left the inn while the Runner was interrogating this individual. It was not until my young cousin and I had proceeded some way on our journey that I discovered in my pocket a purse containing the Brandon necklace.'
The magistrate sat bolt upright in his chair. 'You amaze me, sir! You astonish me! The necklace in your pocket? Really, I do not know what to say!'
'No,' agreed Sir Richard, rising and refilling his guest's glass. 'I was rather taken aback myself. In fact, it was some time before I could think how it came to be there.'
'No wonder, no wonder! Most understandable, indeed! You recognized the necklace?'
'Yes,' said Sir Richard, returning to his chair. 'I recognized it, but—really, I am amazed at my own stupidity!—I did not immediately connect it with the individual encountered near Wroxhall. The question was then not so much how it came, to be in my possession, as how to restore it to Lord Saar with the least possible delay. I could picture Lady Saar's dismay at such an irreparable loss! Ah—a lady of exquisite sensibility, you understand!'
The magistrate nodded his comprehension. The rum punch was warming him quite as much as the fire, and he had a not unpleasant sensation of mixing with exalted persons.
'Happily—or perhaps I should say, in the light of future events, unhappily,' continued Sir Richard, 'I recalled that Beverley Brandon—he was Saar's younger son, I should mention—was staying in this neighbourhood. I repaired instantly to this inn, therefore, and, being fortunate enough to meet Brandon just beyond the village, gave the necklace to him without further ado.'
The magistrate set down his glass. 'You gave the necklace to him? Did he know that it had been stolen?'
'By no means. He was as astonished as I was, but engaged himself to restore it immediately to his father. I considered the matter satisfactorily settled—Saar, you know, having the greatest dislike of any kind of notoriety, such as must accrue from the theft, and the subsequent proceedings.'
'Sir!' said Mr Philips, 'do you mean to imply that this unfortunate young man was murdered for the sake of the necklace?'
'That,' said Sir Richard, 'is what I fear may have happened.'
'But this is shocking! Upon my word, sir, I am quite dumbfounded!—what—who can have known that the necklace was in his possession?'
'I should have said that no one could have known it, but, upon consideration, I imagine that the individual who hid it in my pocket may well have followed me to this place, waiting for an opportunity to get it back into his possession.'
'True! very true! You have been spied upon! Yet you have not seen that man in Queen Charlton?'
'Do you think he would—er—let me see him?' enquired Sir Richard, evading this question.
'No. No, indeed! Certainly not! But this must be looked to!'
'Yes,' agreed Sir Richard, pensively swinging his eyeglass on the end of its ribbon. 'And I think you might, with advantage, look to the sudden disappearance from this inn of a flashy person calling himself Captain Trimble, Mr Philips.'
'Really, sir! This becomes more and more— Pray, what reason have you for supposing that this man may be implicated in the murder?'
'Well,' said Sir Richard slowly, 'some chance words which I let fall on the subject of—ah—waistcoats, sent Captain Trimble off hot-foot to Bristol.'
The magistrate blinked, and directed an accusing glance towards his half-empty glass. A horrid suspicion that the rum punch had affected his understanding was dispelled, however, by Sir Richard's next words.
'My acquaintance at the inn near Wroxhall wore a catskin waistcoat. A casual reference to this circumstance had the surprising effect of arousing the Captain's curiosity. He asked me in what direction the man in the catskin waistcoat had been travelling, and upon my saying that I believed him to be bound for Bristol, he left the inn—er— incontinent.'
'I see! yes, yes, I see! An accomplice!'
'My own feeling,' said Sir Richard, 'is that he was an accomplice who had been—er—bubbled.'
The magistrate appeared to be much struck by this. 'Yes! I see it all! Good God, this is a terrible affair! I have never been called upon to— But you say this Captain Trimble went off to Bristol, sir?'
'He did. But I have since learned, Mr Philips, that he was back at this inn at six o'clock this evening. Ah! I should, I see, say yesterday evening,' he added with a glance at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Mr Philips drew a long breath. 'Your disclosures, Sir Richard, open up—are in fact, of such a nature as to—Upon my word, I never thought—But the murder! You discovered this, sir?'
'I discovered Brandon's body,' corrected Sir Richard. 'How came you to do this, sir? You had a suspicion? You—'
'None at all. It was a warm evening, and I stepped out to enjoy a stroll in the moonlight. Chance alone led my footsteps to the wood where I found my unfortunate young friend's body. It is only since making that melancholy discovery that I have pieced together the—er—evidence.'
Mr Philips had a hazy idea that chance had played an over-important part in Sir Richard's adventures, but he was aware that the punch he had drunk had slightly clouded his intellect. He said guardedly: 'Sir, the story you have unfolded is of a nature which—in short, it must be carefully sifted. Yes, indeed. Carefully sifted! I must request you not to remove from this neighbourhood until I have had time—pray do not misunderstand me! There is not the least suggestion, I assure you, of—'
'My dear sir, I don't misunderstand you, and I have no intention of removing from this inn,' said Sir Richard soothingly. 'I am aware that you have, so far, only my word for it that I am indeed Richard Wyndham.'
'Oh, as to that, I am sure—no suggestion of disbelieving— But my duty is prescribed! You will appreciate my position, I am persuaded!'
'Perfectly!' said Sir Richard. 'I shall hold myself wholly at your disposal. You, as a man of the world, will, I am assured, appreciate the need of the exercise of—ah—the most delicate discretion in handling this affair.'
Mr Philips, who had once spent three weeks in London, was flattered to think that the imprint of that short sojourn was pronounced enough to be discernible to such a personage as Beau Wyndham, and swelled with pride. Native caution, however, warned him that his investigation had better be postponed to a more sober moment. He rose to his feet with careful dignity, and set his empty glass down on the table. 'I am obliged to you!' he pronounced. 'I shall wait upon you tomorrow—no, to-day! I must consider this affair. A terrible business! I think one may say, a terrible business!'
Sir Richard agreed to this, and after a meticulous exchange of courtesies, Mr Philips took his leave. Sir Richard snuffed the candles, and went up to bed, not dissatisfied with his night's work.
In the morning, Pen was first down. The day was fine, and her cravat, she flattered herself, very well tied. There was a suggestion of a prance about her gait as she sallied forth to inspect the weather. Sir Richard, no believer in early rising, had ordered breakfast for nine o'clock, and it was as yet only eight. A maidservant was engaged in sweeping the floor of the private parlour, and a bored waiter was spreading clean cloths over the tables in the coffee-room. As Pen passed through the entrance-parlour, the landlord, who was conversing in low tones with a gentleman unknown to her, looked round, and exclaimed: 'Here is the young gentleman himself, sir!'
Mr Philips, confronted with the biggest crime ever committed within the limits of his jurisdiction, had perhaps imbibed too strong a brew of rum punch on the previous evening, but he was a zealous person, and, in spite of awaking with a very bad head, he had lost no time in getting out of his comfortable bed, and riding back to Queen Charlton to continue his investigations. As Pen paused, he stepped forward, and bade her a civil good-morning. She responded, wishing that Sir Richard would come downstairs; and upon Mr Philips' asking her, in a tone of kindly patronage, whether she was Sir Richard's young cousin, assented, and hoped that the magistrate would not ask for her name.
He did not. He said: 'Now, you were with Sir Richard when he discovered this very shocking crime, were you not, young man?'
'Well, not precisely,' said Pen.
'Oh? How is that?'
'I was, and I wasn't,' Pen explained, with an earnestness which robbed the words of flippancy. 'I didn't see the body.'
'No? Just tell me exactly what happened. No need to feel any alarm, you know! If you walked out with your cousin, how came you to have separated?'
'Well, sir, there was an owl,' confided Pen unblushingly.
'Come, come! An owl?'
'Yes: my cousin said that too.'
'Said what?'
'Come, come! He is not interested in bird-life.'
'Ah, I see! You collect eggs, eh? That's it, is it?'
'Yes, and also I like to watch birds.'
Mr Philips smiled tolerantly. He wondered how old this slim boy was, and thought it a pity the young fellow should be so effeminate; but he was a country man himself, and dimly he could recall the bird-watching days of his youth. 'Yes, yes, I understand! You went off on your own to try to catch a glimpse of this owl: well, I have done the same in my time! And so you were not with your good cousin when he reached the clearing in the wood?'
'No, but I met him on his return, and of course he told me what he had found.'
'I dare say, but hearsay, my boy, is not evidence,' said Mr Philips, nodding dismissal.
Pen made for the door, feeling that she had extricated herself from a difficult situation with aplomb. The landlord ran after her with a sealed letter. 'If I was not forgetting! I beg pardon, sir, but a young person brought this for you not an hour ago. Leastways, it was for a young gentleman of the name of Wyndham. Would that be in mistake for yourself, sir?'
Pen took the letter, and looked at it with misgiving. 'A young person?' she repeated.
'Well, sir, it was one of the servant-girls from Major Daubenay's.'
'Oh!' said Pen. 'Oh, very well! Thank you!'
She passed out into the village street, and after dubiously regarding the direction on the note, which was to— 'Wyndham Esq.,' and written in a round schoolgirl's hand, she broke the seal, and spread open the single sheet.
'Dear Sir,' the letter began, primly enough, 'The Unfortunate Being whom you befriended last night, is in Desperate Case, and begs that you will come to the little orchard next to the road at eight o'clock punctually, because it is vital that I should have Private Speech with you. Do not fail. Your obliged servant,
'Lydia Daubenay.'
It was plain that Miss Daubenay had written this missive in considerable agitation. Greatly intrigued, Pen enquired the way to Major Daubenay's house of a baker's boy, and set off down the dusty road.
By the time she had reached the appointed rendezvous it was half-past eight, and Miss Daubenay was pacing up and down impatiently. A thick, high hedge shut the orchard off from sight of the house, and a low wall enclosed it from the road. Pen climbed on to this without much difficulty, and was greeted by an instant accusation: 'Oh, you are so late! I have been waiting ages!'
'Well, I am sorry, but I came as soon as I had read your letter,' said Pen, jumping down into the orchard. 'Why do you wish to see me?'
Miss Daubenay wrung her hands, and uttered in tense accents: 'Everything has gone awry. I am quite distracted! I don't know what to do!'
Pen betrayed no particular solicitude at this moving speech, but critically looked Miss Daubenay over.
She was a pretty child, about the same age as Pen herself, but shorter, and much plumper. She had a profusion of nut-brown ringlets, a pair of fawn-like brown eyes, and a soft rosebud of a mouth. She was dressed in a white muslin dress, high-waisted, and frilled about the ankles, and with a great many-pale-blue bows of ribbon with long fluttering ends. She raised her melting eyes to Pen's face, and breathed: 'Can I trust you?'
Miss Creed was a literal-minded female, and instead of responding with promptness and true chivalry, she replied cautiously: 'Well, probably you can, but I am not sure till I know what it is that you want.'
Miss Daubenay seemed a little daunted for a moment, and said in a soft moan: 'I am in such a taking! I have been very, very silly!'
Pen found no difficulty in believing this. She said: 'Well, don't stand there wringing your hands! Let us sit down under that tree.'
Lydia looked doubtful. 'Will it not be damp?'
'No, of course not! Besides, what if it were?'
'Oh, the grass might stain my dress!'
'It seems to me,' said Pen severely, 'that if you are bothering about your dress you cannot be in such great trouble.'
'Oh, but I am!' said Lydia, sinking down on to the turf, and clasping her hands at her bosom. 'I do not know what you will say, or what you will think of me! I must have been mad! Only you were kind to me last night, and I thought I could trust you!'
'I dare say you can,' said Pen. 'But I wish you will tell me what is the matter, because I have not yet had any breakfast, and—'
'If I had thought that you would be so unsympathetic I would never, never have sent for you!' declared Lydia in tremulous accents.
'Well, it is very difficult to be sympathetic when a person will do nothing but wring her hands, and say the sort of things there really is no answer to,' said Pen reasonably. 'Do start at the beginning!'
Miss Daubenay bowed her head. 'I am the most unhappy creature alive!' she announced. 'I have the misfortune to be secretly betrothed to one whom my father will not tolerate.'
'Yes, I thought you were. I suppose you went to meet him in the wood last night?'
'Alas, it is true! But do not judge me hastily! He is the most unexceptionable—the most—'
'If he is unexceptionable,' interrupted Pen, 'why won't your father tolerate him?'
'It is all wicked prejudice!' sighed Lydia. 'My father quarrelled with his father, and they don't speak.'
'Oh! What did they quarrel about?'
'About a piece of land,' said Lydia mournfully.
'It sounds very silly.'
'It is silly. Only they are perfectly serious about it, and they do not care a fig for our sufferings! We have been forced to this hateful expedient of meeting in secret. I should tell you that my betrothed is the soul of honour! Subterfuge is repugnant to him, but what can we do? We love each other!'
'Why don't you run away?' suggested Pen practically.
Startled eyes leapt to hers. 'Run where?'
'To Gretna Green, of course.'
'Oh, I could not! Only think of the scandal!'
'I do think you should try not to be so poor-spirited. However, I dare say you can't help it.'
'You are the rudest boy I ever met!' exclaimed Lydia, 'I declare I wish I had not sent for you!'
'So do I, because this seems to me a silly story, and not in the least my concern,' said Pen frankly. 'Oh, pray don't start to cry! There, I am sorry! I didn't mean to be unkind! But why did you send for me?'
'Because, though you are rude and horrid, you did not seem to me like other young men, and I thought you would understand, and not take advantage of me.'
Pen gave a sudden mischievous chuckle. 'I shan't do that, at all events! Oh dear, I am getting so hungry! Do tell me why you sent for me!'
Miss Daubenay dabbed her eyes with a wisp of a handkerchief. 'I was so distracted last night I scarce knew what I was doing! And when I reached home, the most dreadful thing happened! Papa saw me! Oh, sir, he accused me of having gone out to meet P—to meet my betrothed, and said I should be packed off again to Bath this very day, to stay with my Great-Aunt Augusta. The horridest, most disagreeable old woman! Nothing but backgammon, and spying, and everything of the most hateful! Sir, I felt myself to be in desperate case! Indeed, I said it before I had time to recollect the consequences!'
'Said what?' asked Pen, patient but bored.
Miss Daubenay bowed her head again. 'That it was not—not that man I had gone to meet, but another, whom I had met in Bath, when I was sent to Great-Aunt Augusta to—to cure me of what Papa called my infatuation! I said I had been in the habit of meeting this other man c-clandestinely, because I thought that would make Papa afraid to send me back to Bath, and might perhaps even reconcile him to the Real Man.'
'Oh!' said Pen doubtfully. 'And did it?'
'No! He said he did not believe me.'
'Well, I must say I'm not surprised at that'
'Yes, but in the end he did, and now I wish I had never said it. He said if there was Another Man, who was it?'
'You ought to have thought of that. He was bound to ask that question, and you must have looked very silly when you could not answer.'
'But I did answer!' whispered Miss Daubenay, apparently overcome.
'But how could you, if there wasn't another man?'
'I said it was you!' said Miss Daubenay despairingly. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 10 | The effect of this confession upon Pen was not quite what Miss Daubenay had expected. She gasped, choked, and went off into a peal of laughter. Affronted, Miss Daubenay said: 'I don't see what there is to laugh at!'
'No, I dare say you don't,' said Pen, mopping her eyes. 'But it is excessively amusing for all that. What made you say anything so silly?'
'I couldn't think of anything else to say. And as for its being silly, you may think me very ill-favoured, but I have already had several suitors!'
'I think you are very pretty, but I am not going to be a suitor,' said Pen firmly.
'I don't want you to be! For one thing, I find you quite odiously rude, and for another you are much too young, which is why I chose you, because I thought I should be quite safe in so doing.'
'Well you are, but I never heard of anything so foolish in my life! Pray, what was the use of telling your father such fibs?'
'I told you,' said Lydia crossly. 'I scarcely knew what I was saying, and I thought— But everything has gone awry!'
Pen looked at her with misgiving. 'What do you mean?'
'Papa is going to wait on your cousin this morning.'
'What!' exclaimed Pen.
Lydia nodded. 'Yes, and he is not angry at all. He is pleased!'
'Pleased? How can he be pleased at your holding clandestine meetings with a strange man?'
'To be sure, he did say that that was very wrong of me. But he asked me your name. Of course I don't know it, but your cousin told me his name was Wyndham, so I said yours was too.'
'But it isn't!'
'Well, how was I to know that?' demanded Lydia, aggrieved. 'I had to say something!'
'You are the most unprincipled girl in the world! Besides, why should he be pleased just because you said my name was Wyndham?'
'Apparently,' said Lydia gloomily, 'the Wyndhams are all fabulously wealthy.'
'You must tell him without any loss of time I am not a Wyndham, and that I haven't any money at all!'
'How can I tell him anything of the kind? I think you are being most unreasonable! Do but consider! If I said now that I had been mistaken in your name he would suppose you to have been trifling with me!'
'But you cannot expect me to pretend to be in love with you!' Pen said, aghast.
Lydia sniffed. 'Nothing could be more repulsive to me than such a notion. I am already sorry that I mentioned you to Papa. Only I did, and now I don't know what to do. He would be so angry if he knew that I had made it all up!'
'Well, I am very sorry, but it seems to me quite your own fault, and I wash my hands of it,' said Pen.
She glanced at Miss Daubenay's flower-like countenance, and made a discovery. Miss Daubenay's soft chin had acquired a look of obstinacy; the fawn-like eyes stared back at her with a mixture of appeal and determination. 'You can't wash your hands of it. I told you that Papa was going to seek an interview with your cousin to-day.'
'You must stop him.'
'I can't. You don't know Papa!'
'No, and I don't want to know him,' Pen pointed out.
'If I told him it had all been lies, I do not know what he might not do. I won't do it! I don't care what you may say: I won't!'
'Well, I shall deny every word of your story.'
'Then,' said Lydia, not without triumph, 'Papa will do something dreadful to you, because he will think it is you who are telling lies!'
'It seems to me that unless he is a great fool he must know you well enough by now to guess that it is you who have told lies!' said Pen, with asperity.
'It's no use being disagreeable and rude,' said Lydia. 'Papa thinks you followed me to Queen Charlton.'
'You mean you told him so,' said Pen bitterly.
'Yes, I did. At least, he asked me, and I said yes before I had had time to think.'
'Really, you are the most brainless creature! Do you never think?' said Pen, quite exasperated. 'Just look what a coil you've created! Either your Papa is coming to ask me what my intentions are, or—which I think a great deal more likely—to complain to Richard about my conduct! Oh dear, whatever will Richard say to this fresh disturbance?'
It was plain that all this meant nothing to Miss Daubenay. For form's sake, she repeated that she was very sorry, but added: 'I hoped you would be able to help me. But you are a boy! You don't understand what it means to be persecuted as I am!'
This remark could not but strike a chord of sympathy. 'As a matter of fact, I do know,' said Pen. 'Only, if helping you means offering for your hand, I won't do it. The more I think of it, the more ridiculous it seems to me that you should have dragged me into it. How could such an absurd tale possibly be of use?"
Lydia sighed. 'One does not think of those things in the heat of the moment. Besides, I didn't really mean to drag you in. It—it just happened.'
'I don't see how it could have happened if you didn't mean it.'
'One thing led to another,' Lydia explained vaguely. 'Almost before I knew it, the whole story had—had grown up. Of course I don't wish you to offer for my hand, but I do think you might pretend you want to, so that Papa shan't suspect me of telling lies.'
'No!' said Pen.
'I think you are very unkind,' whimpered Lydia. 'I shall be sent back to Bath, and Great-Aunt Augusta will spy on me, and I shall never see Piers again!'
'Who?' Pen's head was jerked round. 'Who will you never see again?'
'Oh, please do not ask me! I did not mean to mention his name!'
'Are you—' Pen stopped, rather white of face, and started again: 'Are you betrothed to Piers Luttrell?'
'You know him!' Miss Daubenay clasped ecstatic hands.
'Yes,' said Pen, feeling as though the pit of her stomach had suddenly vanished. 'Yes, I know him.'
'Then you will help me!'
Miss Creed's clear blue eyes met Miss Daubenay's swimming brown ones. Miss Creed drew a long breath. 'Is—is Piers indeed in love with you?' she asked incredulously.
Miss Daubenay bridled. 'You need not sound so surprised! We have been plighted for a whole year! Why do you look so oddly?'
'I beg your pardon,' apologized Pen. 'But how he must have changed! It is very awkward!'
'Why?' asked Lydia, staring.
'Well, it—it—you wouldn't understand. Has he been meeting you in woods for a whole year?'
'No, because Papa sent me to Bath, and Sir Jasper forbade him to see me any more, and even Lady Luttrell said we were too young. But we love each other!'
'It seems extraordinary,' said Pen, shaking her head. 'You know, I find it very hard to believe!'
'You are the horridest boy! It is perfectly true, and if you know Piers you may ask him for yourself! I wish I had never clapped eyes on you!'
'So do I,' replied Pen frankly.
Miss Daubenay burst into tears. Pen surveyed her with interest, and asked presently in the voice of one probing mysteries: 'Do you always cry as much as this? Do you—do you cry at Piers?'
'I don't cry at people!' sobbed Miss Daubenay. 'And if Piers knew how horrid you have been to me he would very likely knock you down!'
Pen gave a hiccup of laughter. This incensed Lydia so much that she stopped crying, and dramatically commanded Pen to leave the orchard immediately. However, when she discovered that Pen was only too ready to take her at her word, she ran after her, and clasped her by the arm. 'No, no, you cannot go until we have decided what is to be done. You won't—oh, you can't be cruel enough to deny my story to Papa!'
Pen considered this. 'Well, provided you won't expect me to offer for you—'
'No, no, I promise I won't!'
Pen frowned. 'Yes, but it's of no use. There is only one thing for it: you will have to run away.'
'But—'
'Now, don't begin to talk about the scandal, and spoiling your dress!' begged Pen. 'For one thing, it is odiously missish, and for another Piers will never be able to bear it.'
'Piers,' said Miss Daubenay, with swelling bosom, 'thinks me Perfect!'
'I haven't seen Piers for a long time, but he can't have grown up as stupid as that!' Pen pointed out.
'Yes, he—oh, I hate you, I hate you!' cried Lydia, stamping her foot. 'Besides, how can I run away?'
'Oh, Piers will have to arrange it! If Richard doesn't object, I daresay I may help him,' Pen assured her. 'You will have to escape at dead of night, of course, which puts me in mind of a very important thing: you will need a rope-ladder.'
'I haven't a rope-ladder,' objected Lydia.
'Well, Piers must make one for you. If he throws it up to your window, you could attach it securely, could you not, and climb down it?'
'I would rather escape by the door,' said Lydia, gazing helplessly up at her.
'Oh, very well, but it seems rather tame! However, it is quite your own affair. Piers will be waiting for you with a postchaise-and-four. You will leap up into it, and the horses will spring forward, and you will fly for the Border! I can see it all!' declared Pen, her eyes sparkling.
Lydia seemed to catch a little of her enthusiasm. 'To be sure, it does sound romantic,' she admitted. 'Only it is a great way to the Border, and everyone would be so cross with us!'
'Once you were married that wouldn't signify.'
'No. No, it wouldn't, would it? But I don't think Piers has any money.'
'Oh!' Pen's face fell. 'That certainly makes it rather awkward. But I daresay we shall contrive something.'
Lydia said: 'Well, if you don't mind, I would prefer not to go to Gretna, because although it would be romantic I can't help thinking it would be very uncomfortable. Besides, I couldn't have any attendants, or a wedding-dress, or a lace veil, or anything.'
'Don't chatter!' said Pen. 'I am thinking.'
Lydia was obediently silent.
'We must soften your father's heart!' declared Pen at length.
Lydia looked doubtful. 'Yes, I should like that of all things, but how?'
'Why, by making him grateful to Piers, of course!'
'But why should he be grateful to Piers? He says Piers is a young cub.'
'Piers,' said Pen, 'must rescue you from deadly peril.'
'Oh no, please!' faltered Lydia, shrinking. 'I should be frightened! And just think how dreadful it would be if he didn't rescue me!'
'What a little goose you are!' said Pen scornfully. 'There won't be any real danger!'
'But if there is no danger, how can Piers—'
'Piers shall rescue you from me!' said Pen.
Lydia blinked at her. 'I don't understand. How can Piers—'
'Do stop saying "How can Piers"!' Pen begged. 'We must make your father believe that I am a penniless young man without any prospects at all, and then we will run away together!'
'But I don't want to run away with you!'
'No, stupid, and I don't want to run away with you! It will just be a Plot. Piers must ride after us, and catch us, and restore you to your Papa. And he will be so pleased that he will let you marry Piers after all! Because Piers has very good prospects, you know.'
'Yes, but you are forgetting Sir Jasper,' argued Lydia.
'We can't possibly be plagued by Sir Jasper,' said Pen impatiently. 'Besides he is away. Now, don't make any more objections! I must go back to the George, and warn Richard. And I will consult with Piers as well, and I daresay we shall have it all arranged in a trice. I will meet you in the spinney this evening, to tell you what you must do.'
'Oh no, no, no!' shuddered Lydia. 'Not the spinney! I shall never set foot there again!'
'Well, here, then, since you are so squeamish. By the way, did you tell your Papa the whole? I mean, how you saw Captain Trimble kill the stammering-man?'
'Yes, of course I did, and he says I must tell it to Mr Philips! It is so dreadful for me! To think that my troubles had put it out of my head!'
'What a tiresome girl you are!' exclaimed Pen. 'You should not have said a word about it! Ten to one, we shall get into a tangle now, because Richard has already told Mr Philips his story, and I have told him mine, and now you are bound to say something quite different. Did you mention Richard to your Papa?'
'No,' confessed Lydia, hanging her head. 'I just said that I ran away.'
'Oh well, in that case perhaps there will be no harm done!' said Pen optimistically. 'I am going now. I will meet you here again after dinner.'
'But what if they watch me, and I cannot slip away?' cried Lydia, trying to detain her.
Pen had climbed on to the wall, and now prepared to jump down into the road. 'You must think of something,' she said sternly, and vanished from Miss Daubenay's sight.
When Pen reached the George Sir Richard had not only finished his breakfast, but was on the point of sallying forth in search of his errant charge. She came into the parlour, flushed and rather breathless, and said impetuously: 'Oh, Richard, such an adventure! I have such a deal to tell you! All our plans must be changed!'
"This is very sudden!' said Sir Richard. 'May I ask where you have been?'
'Yes, of course,' said Pen, seating herself at the table, and spreading butter lavishly on a slice of bread. 'I have been with that stupid girl. You would not believe that anyone could be so silly, sir!'
'I expect I should. What has she been doing, and why did you go to see her?'
'Well, it's a long story, and most confused!'
'In that case,' said Sir Richard, 'perhaps I shall unravel it more easily if you do not tell it to me with your mouth full.'
Her eyes lit with laughter. She swallowed the bread-and-butter, and said: 'Oh, I'm sorry! I am so hungry, you see.'
'Have an apple,' he suggested.
She twinkled responsively, 'No, thank you, I will have some of that ham. Dear sir, what in the world do you suppose that wretched girl did?'
'I have no idea,' said Sir Richard, carving several slices of the ham.
'Why, she told her Papa that she had gone into the spinney last night to meet me!'
Sir Richard laid down the knife and fork. 'Good God, why?'
'Oh, for such an idiotic reason that it is not worth recounting! But the thing is, sir, that her Papa is coming to see you about it this morning. She hoped, you see, that if she said she had been in the habit of meeting me clandestinely in Bath—'
'In Bath?' interrupted Sir Richard in a faint voice.
'Yes, she said we had been meeting for ever in Bath, on account of her Great-Aunt Augusta, and not wishing to be sent there again. I quite understand that, but—'
'Then your understanding is very much better than mine,' said Sir Richard. 'So far I have not been privileged to understand one word of this story. What has her Great-Aunt Augusta to do with it?'
'Oh, they sent Lydia to stay with her, you see, and she did not like it! She said it was all backgammon and spying. I could not but feel for her over that, for I know exactly what she means.'
'I am glad,' said Sir Richard, with emphasis.
'The thing is, that she thought if she told her Papa that she had met me clandestinely in Bath, he would not send her there again.'
'This sounds to me remarkably like mania in an acute form.'
'Yes, so it did to me. But there is worse to come. She says that instead of being angry, her Papa is inclined to be pleased!'
'The madness seems to be inherited.'
'That is what I thought, but it appears that Lydia told her Papa that my name was Wyndham, and now he thinks that perhaps she is on the brink of making a Good Match!'
'Good God!'
'I knew you would be surprised. And there is another circumstance too, which turns everything topsy-turvy.' She glanced up fleetingly from her plate, and said with a little difficulty: 'I discovered something which—which quite took me aback. She told me whom she went to meet in the wood last night.'
'I see,' said Sir Richard.
She flushed. 'Did you—did you know, sir?'
'I guessed, Pen.'
She nodded. 'It was stupid of me not to suspect. To tell you the truth, I thought—However, it doesn't signify. I expect you did not like to tell me.'
'Do you mind very much?' he asked abruptly.
'Well, I—it—You see, I had it fixed in my mind that Piers—and I—So I daresay it will take me just a little while to grow accustomed to it, besides having all my plans overset. But never mind that! We have now to consider what is to be done to help Piers and Lydia.'
'We?' interpolated Sir Richard.
'Yes, because I quite depend on you to persuade Lydia's Papa that I am not an eligible suitor. That is most important!'
'Do you mean to tell me that this insane person is coming here to obtain my consent to your marriage with his daughter?'
'I think he is coming to discover how much money I have, and whether my intentions are honourable,' said Pen, pouring herself out a cup of coffee. 'But I daresay Lydia mistook the whole matter, for she is amazingly stupid, you know, and perhaps he is coming to complain to you about my shocking conduct in meeting Lydia in secret.'
'I foresee a pleasing morning,' said Sir Richard dryly.
'Well, I must say I think it will be very amusing,' Pea admitted. 'Because—why, what is the matter, sir?'
Sir Richard had covered his eyes with one hand. 'You think it will be very amusing! Good God!'
'Oh, now you are laughing at me again!'
'Laughing! I am recalling my comfortable home, my ordered life, my hitherto stainless reputation, and wondering what I can ever have done to deserve being pitchforked into this shameless imbroglio! Apparently, I am to go down to history as one who not only possessed a cousin who was a monster of precocious depravity, but who actually aided and abetted him in attempting to seduce a respectable young female.'
'No, no!' said Pen earnestly. 'Nothing of the kind, I assure you! I have it all arranged in the best possible way, and your part will be everything of the most proper!'
'Oh, well, in that case—!' said Sir Richard, lowering his hand.
'Now I know you are laughing at me! I am going to be the only son of a widow.'
'The unfortunate woman has all my sympathy.'
'Yes, because I am very wild, and she can do nothing with me. That is why you are here, of course. I cannot but see that I don't look quite old enough to be an eligible suitor. Do you think I do, sir?'
'No, I don't. In fact, I should not be surprised if Lydia's parent were to arrive with a birch-rod.'
'Good gracious, how dreadful! I never thought of that! Well, I shall depend upon you.'
'You may confidently depend upon me to tell Major Daubenay that his daughter's story is a farrago of lies.'
Pen shook her head. 'No, we can't do that. I said just the same myself, but you must see how difficult it would be to persuade Major Daubenay that we are speaking the truth. Consider, sir! She told him that I had followed her here, and I must admit it looks very black, because I was in the spinney last night, and you know we cannot possibly explain the real story. No, we must make the best of it. Besides, I quite feel that we ought to help Piers, if he does indeed wish to marry such a foolish creature.'
'I have not the slightest desire to help Piers, who seems to me to be behaving in a most reprehensible fashion.'
'Oh no, indeed he cannot help it! I see that I had better tell you their whole story.'
Without giving Sir Richard time to protest, she launched into a rapid and colourful account of the young lovers' tribulations. The account, being freely embellished with her own comments, was considerably involved, and Sir Richard several times interrupted it to crave enlightenment on some obscure point. At the end of it, he remarked without any noticeable display of enthusiasm: 'A most affecting history. For myself, I find the theme of Montague and Capulet hopelessly outmoded, however.'
'Well, I have made up my mind to it that there is only one thing for them to do. They must elope.'
Sir Richard, who had been playing with his quizzing-glass, let it fall, and spoke with startling severity. 'Enough of this! Now, understand me, brat, I will engage to fob off the irate father, but there it must end! This extremely tedious pair of lovers may elope tomorrow for anything I care, but I will have no hand in it, and I will not permit you to have a hand in it either. Do you see?'
Pen looked speculatively at him. There was no smile visible in his eyes, which indeed looked much sterner than she had ever believed they could. Plainly, he would not lend any support to her scheme of eloping with Miss Daubenay herself. It would be better, decided Pen, to tell him nothing about this. But she was not one to let a challenge rest unanswered, and she replied with spirit: 'You may do as you choose, but you have no right to tell me what I must or must not do! It is not in the least your affair.'
'It is going to be very much my affair,' replied Sir Richard.
'I don't understand what you can possibly mean by saying anything so silly!'
'I daresay you don't, but you will.'
'Well, we won't dispute about that,' said Pen pacifically.
He laughed suddenly. 'Indeed, I hope we shan't!'
'And you won't tell Major Daubenay that Lydia's story was false?'
'What do you want me to tell him?' he asked, succumbing to the coaxing note in her voice, and the pleading look in her candid eyes.
'Why, that I have been with my tutor in Bath, but that I was so troublesome that my Mama—'
"The widow?'
'Yes, and now you will understand why she is a widow!'
'If you are supposed to favour your mythical father, I do understand. He perished on the gallows.'
'That is what Jimmy Yarde calls the Nubbing Cheat.'
'I daresay it is, but I beg you won't.'
'Oh, very well! Where was I?'
'With your tutor.'
'To be sure. Well, I was so troublesome that my Mama sent you to bring me home. I expect you are a trustee, or something of that nature. And you may say all the horridest things about me to Major Daubenay that you like. In fact, you had better tell him that I am very bad, besides being quite a pauper.'
'Have no fear! I will draw such a picture of you as must make him thankful that his daughter has escaped becoming betrothed to such a monster.'
'Yes, do!' said Pen cordially 'And then I must see Piers.'
'And then?' asked Sir Richard.
She sighed. 'I haven't thought of that yet. Really, we have so much on our hands that I cannot be teased with thinking of any more plans just now!'
'Will you let me suggest a plan to you, Pen?'
'Yes, certainly, if you can think of one. But first I should like to see Piers, because I still cannot quite believe that he truly wishes to marry Lydia. Why, she does nothing but cry, Richard!'
Sir Richard looked down at her enigmatically. 'Yes,' he said. 'Perhaps it would be better if you saw Piers first. People—especially young men—change a great deal in five years, brat.'
'True,' she said, in a melancholy tone. 'But I didn't change!'
'I think perhaps you did,' he said gently.
She seemed unconvinced, and he did not press the point. The waiter came in to clear away the covers, and hardly had he left the parlour than Major Daubenay's card was brought to Sir Richard.
Pen, changing colour, exclaimed: 'Oh dear, now I wish I weren't here! I suppose I can't escape now, can I?'
'Hardly. You would undoubtedly walk straight into the Major's arms. But I won't let him beat you.'
'Well, I hope you won't!' said Pen fervently. 'Tell me quickly, how does a person look depraved? Do I look depraved?'
'Not in the least. The best you can hope for is to look sulky.'
She retired to a chair in the corner, and sprawled in it, trying to scowl. 'Like this?'
'Excellent!' approved Sir Richard.
A minute later, Major Daubenay was ushered into the parlour. He was a harassed-looking man, with a high colour, and upon finding himself confronted by the tall, immaculate figure of a Corinthian, he exclaimed: 'Good Gad! You are Sir Richard Wyndham!'
Pen, glowering in the corner, could only admire the perfection of Sir Richard's bow. The Major's slightly protuberant eyes discovered her. 'And this is the young dog who has been trifling with my daughter!'
'Again?' said Sir Richard wearily.
The Major's eyes stared at him. 'Upon my soul, sir! Do you tell me that this—this young scoundrel is in the habit of seducing innocent females?'
'Dear me, is it as bad as that?' asked Sir Richard.
'No, sir, it is not!' fumed the Major. 'But when I tell you that my daughter has confessed that she went out last night to meet him clandestinely in a wood, and has met him many times before in Bath—'
Up came Sir Richard's quizzing-glass. 'I condole with you,' he said. 'Your daughter would appear to be a young lady of enterprise.'
'My daughter,' declared the Major, 'is a silly little miss! I do not know what young people are coming to! This young man—dear me, he looks no more than a lad!—is, I understand, a relative of yours?'
'My cousin,' said Sir Richard. 'I am—er—his mother's trustee. She is a widow.'
'I see that I have come to the proper person!' said the Major.
Sir Richard raised one languid hand. 'I beg you will acquit me of all responsibility, sir. My part is merely to remove my cousin from the care of a tutor who has proved himself wholly incapable of controlling his— er—activities, and to convey him to his mother's home.'
'But what are you doing in Queen Charlton, then?' demanded the Major.
It was plain that Sir Richard considered the question an impertinence. 'I have acquaintances in the neighbourhood, sir. I scarcely think I need trouble you with the reasons which led me to break a journey which cannot be other than—er—excessively distasteful to me. Pen, make your bow!'
'Pen?' repeated the Major, glaring at her.
'He was named after the great Quaker,' explained Sir Richard.
'Indeed! Then I would have you know, sir, that his behaviour scarcely befits his name!'
'You are perfectly right,' agreed Sir Richard. 'I regret to say that he has been a constant source of anxiety to his widowed parent.'
'He seems very young,' said the Major, scanning Pen critically.
'But, alas, old in sin!'
The Major was slightly taken aback. 'Oh, come, come, sir! I daresay it is not as bad as that! One must make allowances for young people. To be sure, it is very reprehensible, and I do not by any means exonerate my daughter from blame, but the springtime of life, you know, sir! Young people take such romantic notions into their heads—not but what I am excessively shocked to learn of clandestine meetings! But when two young persons fall in love, I believe—'
'In love!' interpolated Sir Richard, apparently thunderstruck.
'Well, well, I daresay you are surprised! One is apt to fancy the birds always too young to leave the nest, eh? But—'
'Pen!' said Sir Richard, turning awfully upon his supposed cousin. 'Is it possible that you can have made serious advances towards Miss Daubenay?'
'I never offered marriage,' said Pen, hanging her head.
The Major seemed to be in danger of suffering an apoplexy. Before he could recover the power of speech, Sir Richard had intervened. Upon the Major's bemused ears fell a description of Pen's shameless precocity that caused the object of it to turn away hastily to hide her laughter. According to Sir Richard's malicious tongue, Bath was strewn with her innocent victims. When Sir Richard let fall the information that this youthful moral leper was without means or expectations, the Major found enough breath to declare that the whelp ought to be horsewhipped.
'Precisely my own view,' bowed Sir Richard.
'Upon my word, I had not dreamed of such a thing! Penniless, you say?'
'Little better than a pauper,' said Sir Richard.
'Good Gad, what an escape!' gasped the Major. 'I do not know what to say! I am aghast!'
'Alas!' said Sir Richard, 'his father was just such another! The same disarming air of innocence hid a wolfish heart.'
'You appal me!' declared the Major. 'Yet he looks a mere boy!'
Pen, feeling that it was time she bore a part in the scene, said with an air of innocence which horrified the Major: 'But if Lydia says I offered marriage, it is not true. It was all mere trifling. I do not wish to be married.'
This pronouncement once more bereft the Major of speech. Sir Richard's forefinger banished Pen to her corner, and by the time the outraged parent ceased gobbling, he had once more taken charge of the situation. He agreed that the whole affair must at all costs be hushed up, promised to deal faithfully with Pen, and finally escorted the Major out of the parlour, with assurances that such depravity should not go unpunished.
Pen, who had been struggling with an overwhelming desire to laugh, went off into a peal of mirth as soon as the Major was out of earshot, and had, in fact, to grasp a chairback to support herself. In this posture she was discovered by Mr Luttrell, who, as soon as Sir Richard and the Major had passed through the entrance-parlour, oblivious of his presence there, bounced in upon Pen, and said through shut teeth: 'So! You think it damned amusing, do you, you little cur? Well, I do not!'
Pen raised her head, and through brimming eyes saw the face of her old playmate swim before her.
Mr Luttrell, stuttering with rage, said menacingly: 'I heard you! I could not help but hear you! So you didn't intend marriage, eh? You—you boast of having t—trifled with an innocent female! And you think you c-can get off scot-free, do you? I'll teach you a lesson!'
Pen discovered to her horror that Mr Luttrell was advancing upon her with his fists clenched. She dodged behind the table, and shrieked: 'Piers! Don't you know me? Piers, look at me! I'm Pen!'
Mr Luttrell dropped his fists, and stood gaping. 'Pen?' he managed to utter. 'Pen?' |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 11 | They stood staring at one another. The gentleman found his voice first, but only to repeat in accents of still deeper amazement: 'Pen! Pen Creed?'
'Yes, indeed I am!' Pen assured him, keeping the table between them.
His fists unclenched. 'But—but what are you doing here? And in those clothes? I don't understand!'
'Well, it's rather a long story,' Pen said.
He seemed slightly dazed. He ran his hand through his hair, in a gesture she knew well, and said: 'But Major Daubenay—Sir Richard Wyndham—'
'They are both part of the story,' replied Pen. She had been looking keenly at him, and thinking that he had not greatly changed, and she added: 'I should have known you anywhere! Have I altered so much?'
'Yes. At least, I don't know. It's your hair, I suppose, cut short like that, and—and those clothes!'
He sounded shocked, which made her think that perhaps he had changed a little. 'Well, I truly am Pen Creed,' she said.
'Yes, I see that you are, now that I have had time to look at you. But I cannot understand it! I could not help hearing some of what was said, though I tried not to—until I heard Miss Daubenay's name!'
'Please, Piers, don't fly into a rage again!' Pen said rather nervously, for she distinctly heard his teeth grind together. 'I can explain everything!'
'I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels!' he complained. 'You have been imposing on her! How could you do such a thing? Why did you?'
'I haven't!' said Pen. 'And I must say, I do think you might be a little more glad to see me!'
'Of course I am glad! But to come here masquerading as a boy, and playing pranks on a defenceless— That was why she failed last night!'
'No, it wasn't! She saw the stammering-man killed, and ran away, you stupid creature!'
'How do you know?' he asked suspiciously.
'I was there, of course.'
'With her?'
'Yes, but—'
'You have been imposing on her!'
'I tell you it's no such thing! I met her by the merest chance.'
'Tell me this!' commanded Piers. 'Does she know that you are a girl?'
'No, but—'
'I knew it!' he declared. 'And I distinctly heard the Major say that she had met you in Bath! I don't know why you did it, but it is the most damnable trick in the world! And Lydia—deceiving me—encouraging your advances—oh, my eyes are open now!'
'If you say another word, I shall box your ears!' said Pen indignantly. 'I would not have believed you could have grown into such a stupid, tiresome creature! I never met Lydia Daubenay in my life until last night, and if you don't believe me you may go and ask her!'
He looked rather taken aback, and said in an uncertain tone: 'But if you did not know her, how came you to be with her in the wood last night?'
'That was chance. The silly little thing swooned, and I—'
'She is not a silly little thing!' interrupted Piers, firing up.
'Yes, she is, very silly. For what must she do, upon reaching home, but tell her Papa that it was not you she had gone to meet, but me!'
This announcement surprised him. His bewildered grey eyes sought enlightenment in Pen's face; he said with a rueful grin: 'Oh Pen, do sit down and explain! You never could tell a story so that one could make head or tail of it!'
She came away from the table, and sat down on the window-seat. After a pained glance at her attire, Piers seated himself beside her. Each took critical stock of the other, but whereas Pen looked Piers frankly over, he surveyed her rather shyly, and showed a tendency to avert his gaze when it encountered hers.
He was a well-favoured young man, not precisely handsome, but with a pleasant face, a good pair of shoulders, and easy, open manners. Since he was four years her senior, he had always seemed to her, in the old days, very large, far more experienced than herself, and quite worthy of being looked up to. She was conscious, as she sat beside him on the window-seat, of a faint feeling of disappointment. He seemed to her little more than a boy, and instead of assuming his old mastery in his dealings with her, he was obviously shy, and unable to think of anything to say. Their initial encounter had of course been unfortunate, but Pen thought that he might, upon discovering her identity, have exhibited more pleasure at meeting her again. She felt forlorn all at once, as though a door had been shut in her face. A vague suspicion that what was behind the shut door was not what she had imagined only made her the more melancholy. To hide it, she said brightly: 'It is such an age since I saw you, and there is so much to say! I don't know where to begin!'
He smiled, but there was a pucker between his brows. 'Yes, indeed, but it seems so strange! Why did she say she had gone out to meet you, I wonder?'
It was apparent to Pen that Miss Daubenay possessed his thoughts to the exclusion of everyone else. Repressing a strong desire to favour him with her opinion of that young lady, she recounted as briefly as she could what had passed between her and Lydia in the orchard. Any expectation she might have had of his viewing his betrothed's conduct in the same light as she did was banished by his exclaiming rapturously: 'She is such an innocent little thing! It is just like her to have said that! I see it all now!'
This was too much for Pen. 'Well, I think it was a ridiculous thing to have said.'
'You see, she knows nothing of the world, Pen,' he said earnestly. 'Then, too, she is impulsive! Do you know, she always makes me think of a bird?'
'A goose, I suppose,' said Pen somewhat tartly.
'I meant a wild bird,' he replied, with dignity. 'A fluttering, timid, little—'
'She didn't seem to me very timid,' Pen interrupted. 'In fact, I thought she was extremely bold to ask a perfectly strange young man to pretend to be in love with her.'
'You don't understand her. She is so trusting! She needs someone to take care of her. We have loved one another ever since our first meeting. We should have been married by now if my father had not picked a foolish quarrel with the Major. Pen, you cannot think what our sufferings have been! There seems to be no end to them! We shall never induce our fathers to consent to our marriage, never!'
He sank his head in his hands with a groan, but Pen said briskly: 'Well, you will have to marry without their consent. Only you both of you seem to be so poor-spirited that you will do nothing but moan, and meet in woods! Why don't you elope?'
'Elope! You don't know what you are saying, Pen! How could I ask that fragile little thing to do anything of the sort? The impropriety, too! I am persuaded she would shrink from the very thought of it!'
'Yes, she did,' agreed Pen. 'She said she would not be able to have attendants, or a lace veil.'
'You see, she has been very strictly reared—has led the most sheltered life! Besides, why should she not have a lace veil, and—and those things which females set store by?'
'For my part,' Pen said, 'I would not care a fig for such fripperies if I loved a man!'
'Oh, you are different!' said Piers. 'You were always more like a boy than a girl. Just look at you now! Why are you masquerading as a boy? It seems to me most peculiar, and not quite the thing, you know.'
'There were circumstances which—which made it necessary,' said Pen rather stiffly. 'I had to escape from my aunt's house.'
'Well, I still don't see why—'
'Because I was forced to climb out of a window!" snapped Pen. 'Moreover, I could not travel all by myself as a female, could I?'
'No, I suppose you could not. Only you should not be travelling by yourself at all. What a madcap you are!' A thought occurred to him; he glanced down at Pen with a sudden frown. 'But you were with Sir Richard Wyndham when I came in, and you seemed to be on mighty close terms with him, too! For heaven's sake, Pen, what are you about? How do you come to be in his company?'
The interview with her old playmate seemed to be fraught not only with disappointment, but with unforeseen difficulties as well. Pen could not but realize that Mr Luttrell was not in sympathy with her. 'Oh, that—that is too long a story to tell!' she replied evasively. 'There were reasons why I wished to come home again, and—and Sir Richard would not permit me to go alone.'
'But, Pen!' He sounded horrified. 'You are surely not travelling with him?'
His tone swept away adventure, and invested her exploit instead with the stigma of impropriety. She coloured hotly, and was searching her mind for an explanation that would satisfy Piers when the door opened, and Sir Richard came into the room.
One glance at Mr Luttrell's rigidly disapproving countenance; one glimpse of Pen's scarlet cheeks and over-bright eyes, were enough to give Sir Richard a very fair notion of what had been taking place in the parlour. He closed the door, saying in his pleasant drawl: 'Ah, good-morning, Mr Luttrell! I trust the—er—surprising events of last night did not rob you of sleep?'
A sigh of relief escaped Pen. With Sir Richard's entrance the reeling world seemed, miraculously, to have righted itself. She left the window-seat, and went instinctively towards him. 'Sir, Piers says—Piers thinks—' She stopped, and raised a hand to her burning cheek.
Sir Richard looked at Piers with slightly raised brows. 'Well?' he said gently. 'What does Piers say and think?'
Mr Luttrell got up. Under that ironical, tolerant gaze, he too began to blush. 'I only said—I only wondered how Pen comes to be travelling in your company!'
Sir Richard unfobbed his snuff-box, and took a pinch. 'And does no explanation offer itself to you?' he enquired.
'Well, sir, I must say it seems to me—I mean—'
'Perhaps I should have told you,' said Sir Richard drawing Pen's hand through his arm, and holding it rather firmly, 'that you are addressing the future Lady Wyndham.'
The hand twitched in Sir Richard's, but in obedience to the warning pressure of his fingers Miss Creed remained silent.
'Oh, I see!' said Piers, his brow clearing. 'I beg pardon! It is famous news indeed! I wish you very happy! But—but why must she wear those clothes, and what are you doing here? It still seems very odd to me! I suppose since you are betrothed it may be argued that— But it is most eccentric, sir, and I do not know what people may say!"
'As we have been at considerable pains to admit no one but yourself into the secret of Pen's identity, I hardly think that people will say anything at all,' replied Sir Richard calmly. 'If the secret were to leak out—why, the answer is that we are a very eccentric couple!'
'It will never leak out through me!' Piers assured him. 'It is no concern of mine, naturally, but I can't help wondering what should have brought you here, and why Pen had to get out of a window. However, I don't mean to be inquisitive, sir. It was only that—having known Pen all my life, you see!'
It was Miss Creed's turn now to give Sir Richard's hand a warning pinch. In fact, so convulsive was her grip that he glanced down at her with a reassuring little smile.
'I am afraid I cannot tell you our reasons for coming here,' he said. 'Certain circumstances arose which made the journey necessary. Pen's attire, however, is easily explained. Neither of us wished to burden ourselves with a duenna upon a mission of—er—extreme delicacy; and the world, my dear Luttrell, being a censorious place, it was judged expedient for Pen to pretend to be, instead of my affianced wife, my young cousin.'
'To be sure, yes! of course!' said Piers, mystified, but overborne by the Corinthian's air of assurance.
'By now,' said Sir Richard, 'we should be on our way back to London, had it not been for two unfortunate circumstances. For one of these, you, I must regretfully point out to you, are responsible.'
'I?' gasped Piers.
'You,' said Sir Richard, releasing Pen's hand. 'The lady to whom you, I apprehend, are secretly betrothed, has, in a somewhat misguided attempt to avert suspicion from the truth informed her parent that Pen is the man with whom she had an assignation in the spinney last night.'
'Yes, Pen told me that. Indeed, I wish she had not done it, sir, but she is so impulsive, you know!'
'So I have been led to infer,' said Sir Richard. 'Unhappily, since I am for the present compelled to remain in Queen Charlton, her impulsiveness has rendered our situation a trifle awkward.'
'Yes, I see that,' owned Piers. 'I am very sorry for it, sir. But must you remain here?'
'Yes,' replied Sir Richard. 'No doubt it has escaped your memory, but a murder was committed in the spinney last night. It was I who discovered Brandon's body, and conveyed the news to the proper quarter.'
Piers looked troubled at this, and said: 'I know, sir, and I do not like it above half! For, in point of fact, I first found Beverley, only you told-me not to say sol'
'I hope you did not?'
'No, because it is so excessively awkward, on account of Miss Daubenay's presence in the spinney! But if she has said that she went there to meet Pen—'
'You had better continue to preserve a discreet silence, my dear boy. The knowledge that you also were in the spinney would merely confuse poor Mr Philips. You see, I have the advantage of knowing who killed Brandon.'
'I think,' said Pen judicially, 'we ought to tell Piers about the diamond necklace, sir.'
'By all means,' agreed Sir Richard.
The history of the diamond necklace, as recounted by Miss Creed, made Mr Luttrell forget for a few moments his graver preoccupations. He seemed very much more the Piers of her childhood when he exclaimed: 'What an adventure!' and by the time he had described to her his surprise at receiving a visit from Beverley, whom he had known but slightly up at Oxford; and had exchanged impressions of Captain Horace Trimble, they were once more upon very good terms. Sir Richard, who thought that his own interests would best be served by allowing Pen uninterrupted intercourse with Mr Luttrell, soon left them to themselves; and after Piers had once more felicitated Pen on her choice of a husband—felicitations which she received in embarrassed silence—the talk soon returned to his own difficulties.
She listened to his enraptured description of Miss Daubenay with as much patience as she could muster, but when he begged her not to divulge her sex to the lady for fear lest her nice sense of propriety might suffer too great a shock, she was so much incensed that she was betrayed into giving him her opinion of Miss Daubenay's morals and manners. A pretty squabble at once flared up, and might have ended in Piers' stalking out of Pen's life for ever had she not remembered, just as he reached the door, that she had engaged herself to further his pretensions to Lydia's hand.
It took a few moments' coaxing to persuade him to relax his air of outraged dignity, but when it was borne in upon him that Lydia had summoned Pen to her side that morning, he did seem to feel that such forward conduct called for an explanation. Pen waved his excuses aside, however. 'I don't mind that, if only she would not cry so much!' she said.
Mr Luttrell said that his Lydia was all sensibility, and deprecated, with obvious sincerity, a suggestion that a wife suffering from an excess of sensibility might prove to be a tiresome acquisition. As he seemed to feel that the support of Lydia was his life's work, Pen abandoned all thought of trying to wean him from his attachment to the lady, and announced her plans for his speedy marriage.
These palpably took Mr Luttrell aback. Lydia's refusal to elope with him he regarded as natural rather than craven, and when Pen's false-abduction scheme was enthusiastically described to him he said that she must be mad to think of such a thing.
'I declare I have a good mind to wash my hands of the whole affair!' said Pen. 'Neither of you has the courage to make the least push in the matter! The end of it will be that your precious Lydia will be married to someone else, and then you will be sorry!'
'Oh, don't suggest such a thing!' he begged. 'If only my father would be a little conciliating! He used to like the Major well enough before they quarrelled.'
'You must soften the Major's heart.'
'Yes, but how?' he asked. 'Now, don't, pray, suggest any more foolish abduction schemes, Pen! I daresay you think them very fine, but if you would but consider the difficulties! No one would ever believe we had not planned it all, because if she eloped with you she would not then wish to marry me, now, would she?'
'No, but we could say that I had forcibly abducted her. Then you could rescue her from me.'
'How should I know that you had abducted her?' objected Piers. 'And just think what a pucker everyone would be in! No, really, Pen, it won't answer! Good God, I should have to fight a duel with you, or something of that nature! I mean, how odd it would look if all I did was to take Lydia home!'
'Well, so we could!' said Pen, her eyes brightening, as new horizons swam into her ken. 'I could have my arm in a sling, and say that you had wounded me! Oh, do let us, Piers! It would be such a famous adventure!'
'You don't seem to me to have changed in the least!' said Piers, in anything but a complimentary tone. 'You are the most complete hand indeed! I cannot conceive how you came to be betrothed to a man of fashion like Wyndham! You know, you will have to mend your ways! In fact, I cannot conceive of your being married at all! You are a mere child.'
Another quarrel might at this point have sprung up between them, had not Sir Richard come back into the room just then, with Mr Philips in his wake. He was looking faintly amused, and the instant expression of extreme trepidation which transformed the countenances of the youthful couple by the window made his lips twitch involuntarily. However, he spoke without a tremor in his voice. 'Ah, Pen! Would you explain, if you please, your— er—owl story, to Mr Philips?'
'Oh!' said Pen, blushing furiously.
The magistrate looked severely across at her. 'From the information I have since received, young man, I am forced to the conclusion that your story was false.'
Pen glanced towards Sir Richard. Instead of coming to her rescue, he smiled maliciously, and said: 'Stand up, my boy, stand up, when Mr Philips addresses you!'
'Oh yes, of course!' said Pen, rising in a hurry. 'I beg pardon! My owl-story! Well, you see, I did not know what to say when you asked why I had not been with my cousin last night.'
'Did not know what to say! You had only one thing to say, and that was the truth!' said Mr Philips austerely.
'I could not,' replied Pen. 'A lady's reputation was at stake!'
'So I am informed. Well, I do not say that I do not sympathize with your motive, but I must warn you, sir, that any further prevarication on your part may lead to serious trouble. Serious trouble! I say nothing of your conduct in meeting Miss Daubenay in a manner I can only describe as clandestine. It is no concern of mine, no concern at all, but if you were a son of mine—However, that is neither here nor there! Fortunately—' He cast a reproachful glance at Sir Richard—'fortunately, I repeat, Miss Daubenay's evidence corroborates the information that this shocking crime was perpetrated by a person corresponding with the description furnished me of the man Trimble. Were it not for this circumstance—for I will not conceal from you that I am far from being satisfied! Very far indeed! You must permit me to say, Sir Richard, that your presence in the spinney last night points to your having positively aided and abetted your cousin in his reprehensible—But I am aware that that is Major Daubenay's concern!'
'No, no, you have it wrong!' Pen assured him. 'My cousin was searching for me! In fact, he was very angry with me for going to the spinney, were you not, Richard?'
'I was,' admitted Sir Richard. 'Very.'
'Well, the whole affair seems to me very strange!' said Philips. 'I will say no more than that yet!'
'You behold me—er—stricken with remorse,' said Sir Richard.
The magistrate snorted, jerked a bow, and took himself off.
'My reputation! oh, my reputation!' mourned Sir Richard. 'Horrible and unprincipled brat, why the owl?'
'Well, I had to say something!' Pen pointed out.
'I am afraid,' said Piers, conscience-stricken, 'that it is a little Lydia's fault. But indeed, sir, she meant no harm!'
'I know,' said Sir Richard. 'She is so impulsive! I feel a hundred years old.'
He went out on the words, and Pen at once rounded on Mr Luttrell, saying in accusing accents: 'There! You see now what your precious Lydia has done!'
'She is no worse than you are! In fact, not as bad!' retorted Piers. 'She would not masquerade about the country as a boy! I do not wonder at Sir Richard's feeling a hundred years old. If I were betrothed to you, I should feel the same!'
Miss Creed's eyes flashed. 'Well, I will tell you something, Piers Luttrell! I have got a cousin with a face like a fish, and he wants to marry me, which is why I escaped out a window. But—do you hear me?—I would a great deal rather marry him than you. If I had to marry you, I would drown myself! You are stupid, and rude, and spiritless!'
'Merely because I have a little common sense,' began Piers, very stiff, and rather flushed.
He was interrupted. A waiter came in with the news that a Young Person desired instant speech with Mr Wyndham.
Correctly divining this mythical being to be herself, Pen said: 'What can that nonsensical girl want now? I wish I had never come to Queen Charlton! Oh, very well! Show the young person in!'
'Good God, can it be Lydia?' exclaimed Piers, when the waiter had withdrawn.
The young person was not Miss Daubenay, but her personal maid, a rosy damsel, who appeared to be strongly imbued with her mistress's romantic ideals. She came in heavily veiled, and presented Pen with a sealed letter. While Pen tore it open, and read its agitated message, Piers besieged the girl with urgent questions, to which, however, she only replied with evasive answers, punctuated by giggles.
'Good gracious!' exclaimed Pen, deciphering Miss Daubenay's scrawl. 'Matters are now desperate! She says she will elope with you.'
'What?' Piers abandoned the servant, and strode to Pen's side. 'Here, give it to me!'
Pen warded him off. 'She says they are going to send her to the Wilds of Lincolnshire.'
'Yes, yes, that is where her grandmother lives! When does she go?'
'I can't read it—oh yes, I see! Tomorrow morning, with her Papa. She says I am to tell you to arrange for the elopement this evening, without fail.'
'Good God!' Piers snatched the letter from her, and read it for himself. 'Yes, you are right: she does say tomorrow morning! Pen, if she goes, it will be the end of everything! I never meant to do anything so improper as to elope with her, but I have now no choice! It is not as though her parents disapprove of me, or—or that I am not eligible. If that were so, it would be different. But until they quarrelled—however, talking is to no purpose!' He turned to the maidservant, who had by this time put back her veil, and was listening to him with her mouth open. 'Are you in your mistress's confidence?' he demanded.
'Oh yes, sir!' she assured him, adding with another giggle: 'Though the master would tear me limb from limb if he knew I was taking letters to you, sir.'
Piers ignored this somewhat exaggerated statement. 'Tell me, is your mistress indeed resolved upon this course?'
'Oh!' said the damsel, clasping her plump hands together, 'she was never more resolved in her life, sir! "I must Fly!" she says to me, clean distracted. "Lucy," she says, "I am Utterly Undone, for All is Discovered!" So I popped on my bonnet, sir, and slipped out when Cook's back was turned, "for," says my poor young mistress, with tears standing in her eyes fit to break anyone's heart, "if I am whisked off to Lincolnshire, I shall die!" And so she will sir, no question!'
Pen sat down again, hugging her knees. 'Nothing could be better!' she declared. 'I always liked the notion of your eloping to Gretna Green. In fact, it was my suggestion. Only, Lydia told me that you have no money, Piers. Shall we make Richard pay for the postchaise?'
'Certainly not!' he replied. 'Of course I have enough money for that!'
'I think you ought to have four horses,' she warned him. 'Posting charges are very high, you know.'
'Good God, Pen, I'm not penniless! Lydia meant only that I am dependent upon my father. If he refuses to forgive us, I shall be obliged to find some genteel occupation, but I am persuaded that once the deed is done he will very soon come round. Oh, Pen! is she not an angel? I am quite overcome! Is it not affecting that she should trust me so implicitly?'
Pen opened her eyes at this. 'Why shouldn't she?' she asked, surprised.
'Why shouldn't she? Really, Pen, you don't understand in the least! Think of her placing her life, honour, all, in my care!'
'I don't see anything wonderful in that,' replied Pen contemptuously. 'I think it would be a great deal more extraordinary if she didn't trust you.'
'I remember now that you never had much sensibility," said Piers. 'You are such a child!' He turned again to the interested abigail. 'Now, Lucy, attend to me! You must take a letter back to your mistress, and assure her besides that I shall not fail. Are you prepared to accompany us to Scotland?'
She gaped at him for a moment, but however strange the idea might have been to her it apparently pleased her, for she nodded vehemently, and said: 'Oh yes, sir, thank you, sir!'
'Who ever heard of taking a maid on an elopement?' demanded Pen.
'I will not ask Lydia to fly with me without some female to go with her!' declared Piers nobly.
'Dear me, I should think she would wish the girl at Jericho!'
'Lydia is quite unused to waiting upon herself,' said Piers. 'Moreover, the presence of her maid must lend respectability to our flight.'
'Has she a little lap-dog she would like to take with her too?' asked Pen innocently.
Piers cast her a quelling look, and stalked across the room to a small writing-table near the window. After testing the pen that lay on it, mending it, and dipping it in the standish, he then sat while the ink dried on it, frowning over what he should write to his betrothed. Finally, he dipped the pen in the standish once more, and began to write, punctuating his labour with reminders to Lucy to see that her mistress had a warm cloak, and did not bring too many bandboxes with her.
'Or the parrot,' interpolated Pen.
'Lor', sir, Miss Lydia hasn't got any parrot!'
'If you don't hold your tongue, Pen—!'
'No little lap-dog either?' Pen asked incredulously.
'No, sir, 'deed, no! There's only her love-birds, the pretty things, and her doves!'
'Well, you will not have room in the chaise for a dovecot, but you should certainly bring the love-birds,' said Pen, with an irrepressible chuckle.
Piers flung down his pen. 'Another word from you, and I'll put you out of the room!'
'No, you won't, because this is a private parlour, and you are nothing but a guest in it.'
'But will I tell Miss to bring the love-birds?' asked Lucy, puzzled.
'No!' said Piers. 'Oh, do stop, Pen! You are driving me distracted! Listen, I have told Lydia that I will have a chaise waiting in the lane behind the house at midnight. Do you think that is too early? Will her parents go to her room as late as that?"
'No, sir, that they won't!' said Lucy. 'The Major does be such a one for retiring early! He'll be in bed and asleep by eleven, take my word for it, sir!'
'Fortunately, it is moonlight,' Piers said, shaking sand over his letter. 'Listen, Lucy! I depend upon you to see that your mistress goes early to bed; she must get what sleep she can! And you must wake her at the proper time, do you understand? Can I trust you to pack for her, and to bring her safely to me?'
'Oh, yes, sir!' replied Lucy, bobbing a curtsey. 'For I wouldn't be left to face the Major, not for ever so!'
'You had best go back to the house with all possible speed,' Piers said, applying a wafer to the folded letter, and handing it to her. 'Mind, now! that letter must not fall into the wrong hands!'
'If anyone tries to take it from you, you must swallow it,' put in Pen.
'Swallow it, sir?'
'Pay no heed to my friend!' said Piers hastily. There! Be off with you, and remember that I depend upon your fidelity!'
Lucy curtseyed herself out of the room. Piers looked at Pen, still hugging her knees on the window-seat, and said severely: 'I suppose you flatter yourself you have been helpful!'
Impish lights danced in her eyes. 'Oh, I have! Only think if you had had to turn back to fetch the love-birds, which very likely you would have had to do if I had not reminded the abigail about them!'
He could not help grinning. 'Pen, if she does bring them, I'll—I'll turn back just to wring your neck! Now I must go to arrange for the hire of a chaise, and four fast horses.'
'Where will you find them?' she asked.
"There is a posting-house at Keynsham where they keep very tolerable cattle. I shall drive over there immediately.'
'Famous! Go where you are known, and let the news of your wanting a chaise for midnight spread all over the countryside within three hours!'
He checked. 'I had not thought of that! The devil! This means I must go into Bristol, and I can ill spare the time, with so much to attend to.'
'Nothing of the sort!' said Pen, jumping up. 'Now I will be helpful indeed! I will drive to Keynsham with you, and I will order the chaise.'
His brow cleared. 'Oh Pen, will you? But Sir Richard! Will he not object, do you think? Of course, I would take every care of you, but—'
'No, no, he will not object, I assure you! I shall not tell him anything about it,' said Pen ingenuously.
'But that would not be right! And I should not wish to do anything—'
'I will leave a message for him with the landlord,' promised Pen. 'Did you walk into the village, or have you a carriage here?'
'Oh, I drove in! The gig is in the yard now. I confess, if you feel it would not be wrong of you to go with me, I should be glad of your help.'
'Only wait while I get my hat!' Pen said, and darted off in search of it. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 12 | Miss Creed and Mr Luttrell, partaking of midday refreshment in Keynsham's best inn, and exhaustively discussing the details of the elopement, were neither of them troubled by doubts of the wisdom of the gentleman's whisking his betrothed off to Scotland at a moment when that lady had become entangled in a case of murder. Indeed, Mr Luttrell, a single-minded young man, was in a fair way to forgetting that he had ever had Beverley Brandon to stay with him. He had left his mother trying to write a suitable letter to Lady Saar, and if he thought about the unfortunate affair at all it was to reflect comfortably that Lady Luttrell would do everything that was proper. His conversation was confined almost exclusively to his own immediate problems, but he digressed several times animadvert on Pen's unconventional exploits.
'Of course,' he conceded, 'it is not so shocking now that you are betrothed to Wyndham, but I own it does surprise me that he—a man of the world!—should have countenanced such a prank. But these Corinthians delight in oddities, I believe! I dare say no one will wonder at it very much. If you were not betrothed it would be different, naturally!'
Pen's clear gaze met his steadily. 'I think you make a great bustle about nothing,' she said.
'My dear Pen!' He gave a little laugh. 'You are such a child! I believe you haven't the smallest notion of the ways of the world!'
She was obliged to admit that this was true. It occurred to her that since Piers seemed to be well-informed on this subject she might with advantage learn a little from him. 'If I were not going to marry Richard, would it be very dreadful?' she asked.
'Pen! What things you do say!' he exclaimed. 'Only think of your situation, travelling all the way from London in Wyndham's company, without even your maid to go with you! Why, you must marry him now!'
She tilted her chin. 'I don't see that I must at all.'
'Depend upon it, if you do not, he does. I must say, I think it excessively strange that a man of his years and—and milieu—should have wished to marry you, Pen.' He realized his speech was scarcely complimentary, and hastened to add: 'I don't mean that precisely, only you are so much younger than he is, and such a little innocent!'
She pounced on this. 'Well, that is one very good reason why I need not marry him!' she said. 'He is so much older than I am that I dare say no one would think it in the smallest degree odd that we should have taken this journey together.'
'Good Gad, Pen, he is not as old as that! What a strange girl you are! Don't you wish to marry him?'
She stared at him with puckered brows. She thought of Sir Richard, of the adventures she had encountered in his company, and of the laughter in his eyes, and of the teasing note in his voice. Suddenly she flushed rosily, and the tears started to her own eyes. 'Yes. Oh, yes, I do!' she said.
'Well! But what is there to cry over?' demanded Piers.
'For a moment I quite thought— Now, don't be silly, Pen!'
She blew her nose defiantly, and said in somewhat watery accents: 'I'm not crying!'
'Indeed, I can't conceive why you should. I think Wyndham a very good sort of man—a famous fellow! I suppose you will become very fashionable, Pen, and cut the deuce of a dash in town!'
Pen, who could see no future beyond a life spent within the walls of her aunt's respectable house, agreed to this, and made haste to direct the conversation into less painful channels.
Although Keynsham was situated only a few miles distant from Queen Charlton, it was close on the dinner-hour when Piers set Pen down at the George Inn again. By this time, a postchaise had been hired, and four good horses chosen to draw it, the whole being appointed to arrive at a rendezvous outside the gates of Crome Hall at half-past eleven that evening. Beyond a certain degree of anxiety concerning the extent of the baggage his betrothed would wish to bring with her, and some fears that her flight might be intercepted at the outset, Mr Luttrell had nothing further to worry about, as his guide and mentor frequently assured him.
Pen would have liked to have been present at the fatal hour, but this offer Piers declined. They bade each other farewell, therefore, at the door of the George Inn, neither suffering the smallest pang at the notion that each was about to be joined in wedlock to another.
Having waved a last goodbye to her old playmate, Pen went into the inn, and was met by Sir Richard, who looked her up and down, and said: 'Abominable brat, you had better make a clean breast of the whole! Where have you been, and what mischief have you done?'
'Oh, but I left a message for you!' Pen protested. 'Did they not give it to you, sir?'
'They did. But the intelligence that you had gone off with young Luttrell merely filled me with misgiving. Confess!'
She twinkled up at him. 'Well, perhaps you will not be quite pleased, but indeed I did it all for the best, Richard!'
'This becomes more and more ominous. I am persuaded you have committed some devilry.'
She passed into the parlour, and went to the mirror above the fireplace to pat her crisp, dishevelled curls into order. 'Not devilry, precisely,' she demurred.
Sir Richard who had been observing her in some amusement, said: 'I am relieved. Yes, I think the sooner you put on your petticoats again the better, Pen. That is a very feminine trick, let me tell you.'
She coloured, laughed, and turned away from the mirror. 'I forgot. Well, it doesn't signify, after all, for it seems to me that I have reached the end of my adventure.'
'Not quite,' he replied.
'Yes, I have. You do not know!'
'You look extremely wicked. Out with it!'
'Piers and Lydia are going to elope tonight!'
The laugh died out of his eyes. 'Pen, is this your doing?'
'Oh no, indeed it is not, sir! In fact, I had quite a different plan, only I dared not tell you, and, as a matter of fact, Piers did not think well of it. I wanted to abduct Lydia, so that Piers could rescue her from me, and so soften her Papa's heart However, I dare say you would not have approved of that.'
'I should not,' said Sir Richard emphatically.
'No, that's why I said nothing to you about it. In the end Lydia decided to elope.'
'You mean that you bullied the wretched girl—'
'I did not! You are most unjust, sir! On my honour, I did not! I don't say that I didn't perhaps put the notion into her head, but it was all the Major's doing. He threatened to take her to Lincolnshire tomorrow morning, and of course she could not support life there! Oh, here comes the waiter! I will tell you the whole story presently.'
She retired to her favourite seat in the window while the covers were laid, and Sir Richard, standing with his back to the mighty fireplace, watched her. The waiter took his time over the preparations for dinner, and during one of his brief absences from the parlour, Pen said abruptly: 'You were quite right: he has changed, sir. Only you were wrong about one thing: he does not think I have changed at all.'
'I did not suspect him to be capable of paying you so pretty a compliment,' said Sir Richard, raising his brows.
'Well, I don't think he meant it to be a compliment,' said Pen doubtfully.
He smiled but said nothing. The waiter came back into the room with a laden tray, and began to set various dishes on the table. When he had withdrawn, Sir Richard pulled a chair out for Pen, and said: 'You are served, brat. Hungry?'
'Not very,' she replied, sitting down.
He moved to his own place. 'Why, how is this?'
'Well, I don't know. Piers is going to elope with Lydia at midnight.'
'I trust that circumstance has not taken away your appetite?'
'Oh no! I think they will deal famously together, for they are both very silly.'
'True. What had you to do with their elopement?'
'Oh, very little, I assure you, sir! Lydia made up her mind to do it without any urging from me. All I did was to hire the postchaise for Piers, on account of his being well-known in Keynsham.'
'I suppose that means that we shall be obliged to sustain another visit from Major Daubenay. I seem to be plunging deeper and deeper into a life of crime."
She looked up enquiringly. 'Why, sir? You have done nothing!'
'I am aware. But I undoubtedly should do something.'
'Oh no, it is all arranged! There is truly nothing left to do.'
'You don't think that I—as one having reached years of discretion—might perhaps be expected to nip this shocking affair in the bud?'
'Tell the Major, do you mean?' Pen cried. 'Oh, Richard, you would not do such a cruel thing? I am persuaded you could not!'
He refilled his glass. 'I could, very easily, but I won't. I am not, to tell you the truth, much interested in the affairs of a pair of lovers whom I have found, from the outset, extremely tiresome. Shall we discuss instead our own affairs?'
'Yes, I think we ought to,' she agreed. 'I have been so busy to-day I had almost forgot the stammering-man. I do trust, Richard, we shall not be arrested!'
'Indeed, so do I!' he said, laughing.
'It's very well to laugh, but I could see that Mr Philips did not like us at all.'
'I fear that your activities disarranged his mind. Fortunately, news has reached him that a man whom I suspect of being none other than the egregious Captain Trimble has been taken up by the authorities in Bath.'
'Good gracious, I never thought he would be caught! Pray, had he the necklace?'
'That, I am as yet unable to tell you. It is to be hoped that Luttrell and his bride will not prolong their honeymoon, since I fancy Lydia will be wanted to identify the prisoner.'
'If she knew that, I dare say she would never come back at all,' said Pen.
'A public-spirited female,' commented Sir Richard.
She giggled. 'She has no spirit at all. I told you so, sir! Will the—the authorities wish to see me?'
'I hardly think so. In any event, they are not going to see you.'
'No, I must say I feel it might be excessively awkward if I were forced to appear,' remarked Pen. 'In fact, sir, I think—I think I had better go home, don't you?'
He looked at her. 'To your Aunt Almeria, brat?'
'Yes, of course. There is nowhere else for me to go.'
'And Cousin Fred?'
'Well, I hope that after all the adventures I have gone through he will not want to marry me any more,' said Pen optimistically. 'He is very easily shocked, you know.'
'Such a man would not be at all the husband for you,' he said, shaking his head. 'You must undoubtedly choose some one who is not at all easily shocked.'
'Perhaps I had better mend my ways,' said Pen, with a swift unhappy smile.
"That would be a pity, for your ways are delightful. I have a better plan than yours, Pen.'
She got up quickly from the table. 'No, no! Please no, sir!' she said in a choking voice.
He too rose, and held out his hand. 'Why do you say that? I want you to marry me, Pen.'
'Oh Richard, I wish you would not!' she begged, retreating to the window. 'Indeed, I don't want you to offer for me. It is extremely obliging of you, but I could not!'
'Obliging of me! What nonsense is this?'
'Yes, yes, I know why you have said it!' she said distressfully. 'You feel that you have compromised me, but indeed you haven't, for no one will ever know the truth!'
'I detect the fell hand of Mr Luttrell,' said Sir Richard rather grimly. 'What pernicious rubbish has he been putting into your head, my little one?'
This term of endearment made Pen wink away a sudden tear. 'Oh no! Only I was stupid not to think of it before. Really, I have no more sense than Lydia! But you are so much older than I am that it truly did not occur to me—until Piers came, and that you told him, to save my face, that we were betrothed! Then I saw what a little fool I had been! But it does not signify, sir, for Piers will never breathe a word, even to Lydia, and Aunt Almeria need not know that I have been with you all the time.'
'Pen, will you stop talking nonsense? I am not in the least chivalrous, my dear: you may ask my sister, and she will tell you that I am the most selfish creature alive. I never do anything to please anyone but myself.'
'That I know to be untrue!' Pen said. 'If your sister thinks it, she doesn't know you. And I am not talking nonsense. Piers was shocked to find me with you, and you did think he had reason, or you would not have said what you did.'
'Oh yes!' he responded. 'I am well aware of what the world would think of this escapade, but, believe me, my little love, I don't offer marriage from motives of chivalry. To be plain with you, I started on this adventure because I was drunk, and because I was bored, and because I thought I had to do something which was distasteful to me. I stayed in it because I found myself enjoying it as I have not enjoyed anything for years.'
'You did not enjoy the stagecoach,' she reminded him.
'No, but we need not make a practice of travelling by the stagecoach, need we?' he said, smiling down at her. 'Briefly, Pen, when I met you I was about to contract a marriage of convenience. Within twelve hours of making your acquaintance, I knew that no matter what might happen, I would not contract that marriage. Within twenty-four hours, my dear, I knew that I had found what I had come to believe did not exist'
'What was that?' she asked shyly.
His smile was a little twisted. 'A woman—no, a chit of a girl! An impertinent, atrocious, audacious brat—whom I am very sure I cannot live without.'
'Oh!' said Pen, blushing furiously. 'How kind of you to say that to me! I know just why you do, and indeed I am very grateful to you for putting it so prettily!'
'And you don't believe a word of it!'
'No, for I am very sure you would not have thought of marrying me if Piers had not been in love with Lydia Daubenay,' she said simply. 'You are sorry for me, because of that, and so—'
'Not in the least.'
'I think you are a little, Richard. And I quite see that to a person like you—for it is no use to pretend to me that you are selfish, because I know that you are nothing of the sort—to a person like you, it must seem that you are bound in honour to marry me. Now, confess! That is true, is it not? Don't—please don't tell me polite lies!'
'Very well,' he replied. 'It is true that having embroiled you in this situation I ought in honour to offer you the protection of my name. But I am offering you my heart, Pen.'
She searched feverishly for her handkerchief, and mopped her brimming eyes with it. 'Oh, I do thank you!' she said in a muffled voice. 'You have such beautiful manners, sir!'
'Pen, you impossible child!' he exclaimed. 'I am trying to tell you that I love you, and all you will say is that I have beautiful manners!'
'You cannot fall in love with a person in three days!' she objected.
He had taken a step towards her, but he checked himself at that. 'I see.'
She gave her eyes a final wipe, and said apologetically: 'I beg your pardon! I didn't mean to cry, only I think I am a little tired, besides having had a shock on account of Piers, you know."
Sir Richard, who had been intimately acquainted with many women, thought that he did know. 'I was afraid of that,' he said. 'Did you care so much, Pen?'
'No, but I thought I did, and it is all very lowering, if you understand what I mean, sir.'
'I suppose I do. I am too old for you, am I not?'
'I am too young for you,' said Pen unsteadily. 'I dare say you think I am amusing—in fact, I know you do, for you are for ever laughing at me—but you would very soon grow tired of laughing, and—and perhaps be sorry that you had married me.'
'I am never tired of laughing.'
'Please do not say any more!' she implored. 'It has been such a splendid adventure until Piers came, and forced you to say what you did! I—I would rather that you didn't say any more, Richard, if you please!'
He perceived that his careful strategy in allowing her to meet her old playfellow before declaring himself had been mistaken. There did not seem to be any way of explaining this. No doubt, he thought, she had from the outset regarded him in an avuncular light. He wondered how deeply her affections had been rooted in the dream-figure of Piers Luttrell, and, misreading her tears, feared that her heart had indeed suffered a severe wound. He wanted very much to catch her up in his arms, overbearing her resistance and her scruples, but her very trust in him set up a barrier between them. He said, with a shadow of a smile: 'I have given myself a hard task, have I not?'
She did not understand him, and so said nothing. Not until Piers had shown her a shocked face, and Sir Richard had claimed her as his prospective wife, had she questioned her own heart. Sir Richard had been merely her delightful travelling companion, an immensely superior personage on whom one could place one's dependence. The object of her journey had obsessed her thoughts to such a degree that she had never paused to ask herself whether the entrance into her life of a Corinthian had not altered the whole complexion of her adventure. But it had; and when she had encountered Piers, it had been suddenly borne in upon her that she did not care two pins for him. The Corinthian had ousted him from her mind and heart. Then Piers had turned the adventure into a faintly sordid intrigue, and Sir Richard had made his declaration, not because he had wanted to (for if he had, why should he have held his tongue till then?) but because honour had forced the words out of him. It was absurd to think that a man of fashion, nearing his thirtieth year, could have fallen head-over-ears in love with a miss scarcely out of the schoolroom, however easily the miss might have tumbled into love with him.
'Very well, Miss Creed,' said Sir Richard. 'I will woo you in form, and according to all the dictates of convention.'
The ubiquitous waiter chose this moment to come into the parlour to clear the table. Turning to gaze out of the window, Miss Creed reflected that in a more perfect world no servant would intrude upon his legitimate business at unreasonable moments. While the waiter, who seemed from his intermittent sniffs to be suffering from a cold in the head, shuffled about the room, clattering plates and dishes together on a tray, she resolutely winked away another tear, and fixed her attention on a mongrel dog, scratching for fleas in the middle of the street. But this object of interest was presently sent scuttling to cover by the approach of a smart curricle drawn by a pair of fine bays, and driven by a young blood in a coat of white drab cloth, with as many as fifteen capes, and two tiers of pockets. A Belcher handkerchief protruded from an inner pocket, and the coat was flung open to display an astonishing view of a kerseymere waistcoat, woven in stripes of blue and yellow, and a cravat of white muslin spotted with black. A bouquet was stuck in a button-hole of the driving-coat, and a tall hat with a conical crown and an Allen brim was set at a rakish angle on the head of this exquisite.
The equipage drew up outside the George, and a small Tiger jumped down from the back of the curricle, and ran to the horses' heads. The exquisite cast aside the rug that covered his legs, and alighted, permitting Miss Creed a glimpse of white corduroy breeches, and short boots with very long tops. He passed into the inn while she was still blinking at such a vision, and set up a shout for the landlord.
'Good gracious, sir, such an odd creature has arrived! I wish you could have seen him!' Pen exclaimed. 'Only fancy! He has a blue-and-yellow striped waistcoat, and a spotted tie!'
'I wear them myself sometimes,' murmured Sir Richard apologetically.
She turned, determined to keep the conversation to such unexceptionable subjects. 'You, sir? I cannot believe such a thing to be possible!'
'It sounds remarkably like the insignia of the Four-Horse Club,' he said. 'But what in the name of all that's wonderful should one of our members be doing in Queen Charlton?'
A confused sound of conversation reached them from the entrance-parlour. Above it the landlord's voice, which was rather high-pitched, said clearly: 'My best parlour is bespoke by Sir Richard Wyndham, sir, but if your honour would condescend—'
'What?'
There was no difficulty at all in hearing the monosyllable, for it was positively shouted.
'Oh, my God!' said Sir Richard, and turned to run a quick eye over Miss Creed. 'Careful now, brat! I fancy I know this traveller. What in the world have you done to that cravat? Come here!'
He had barely time to straighten Miss Creed's crumpled tie when the same penetrating voice uttered: 'Where? In there? Don't be a fool, man! I know him well!' and hasty footsteps were heard crossing the entrance-parlour.
The door was flung open; the gentleman in the fifteen-caped driving-coat strode in, and, upon setting eyes on Sir Richard, cast his hat and gloves from him, and started forward, exclaiming: 'Ricky! Ricky, you dog, what are you doing here?'
Pen, effacing herself by the window, watched the tall young man wring Sir Richard's hand, and wondered where she could have seen him before. He seemed vaguely familiar to her, and the very timbre of his reckless voice touched a cord of memory.
'Well, upon my soul!' he said. 'If this don't beat all! I don't know what the deuce you're doing here, but you're the very man I want to see. Ricky, does that offer of yours hold good? Damme, if it does, I'm off to the Peninsula by the first boat! There's the devil and all to pay in the family this time!'
'I know it,' Sir Richard said. 'I take it you have heard the news about Beverley?'
'My God, don't tell me you've heard it?'
'I found him,' Sir Richard said.
The Honourable Cedric clapped a hand to his head. 'Found him? What, you weren't looking for him, Ricky, were you? How many more people know about it? Where's that damned necklace?'
'Unless the law-officers have now got it, I fancy it is in one Captain Trimble's pocket. It was once in my possession, but I handed it over to Beverley, to—er—restore to your father. When he was murdered—'
Cedric recoiled, his jaw dropping. 'What's that? Murdered? Ricky, not Bev?'
'Ah!' said Sir Richard, 'so you didn't know?'
'Good God!' Cedric said. His roving eye alighted on the decanter and the glasses which the waiter had left upon the table. He poured himself out a glass, and tossed it off. "That's better. So Bev's been murdered, has he? Well, I came here with a little notion of murdering him myself. Who did it?'
'Trimble, I imagine,' Sir Richard replied.
Cedric paused in the act of refilling his glass, and looked up quickly. 'For the sake of the necklace?'
'Presumably.'
To Pen's astonishment, Cedric broke into a shout of laughter. 'Oh, by God, but that's rich!' he gasped. 'Oh, blister me, Ricky, that's hell's own jest!'
Sir Richard put up his eyeglass, surveying his young friend through it with faint surprise. 'I did not, of course, expect the news to prostrate you with grief, but I confess I was hardly prepared—'
'Paste, dear old boy! nothing but paste!' said Cedric, doubled up over a chairback.
The eyeglass dropped. 'Dear me!' said Sir Richard. 'Yes, I ought to have thought of that. Saar?'
'Years ago!' Cedric said, wiping his streaming eyes with the Belcher handkerchief. 'Only came out when I—I, mark you, Ricky!—set the Bow Street Runners on to it! I thought m' father was devilish lukewarm over the affair. Never guessed, however! There was m' mother sending messenger upon messenger up to Brook Street, and the girls nagging at me, so off I went to Bow Street. Fact is, my head's never at its best in the morning. No sooner had I set the bloodhounds on to the damned necklace than I began to think the thing over. I told you Bev was a bad man, Ricky. I'll lay you a monkey he stole the necklace.'
Sir Richard nodded. 'Quite true.'
'Damme, I call that going too far! M' mother had a secret hiding-place made for it in her chaise. M' father knew. I knew. Bev knew. Dare say the girls knew. But no one else, d'ye mark me? Thought it all out at White's. Nothing like brandy for clearing the head! Then I remembered that Bev took himself off to Bath last week. Never could imagine why! Thought I'd better look into things m'self. Just made up my mind to take a little journey to Bath, when in walked m' father in a deuce of a pucker. He'd heard from Melissa that I'd been to Bow Street. Pounced on me, looking as queer as Dick's hatband, and wanting to know what the devil I meant by setting the Runners on to it. Now, Ricky, dear boy, would you say I was a green 'un? Give you my word I never guessed what was coming! Always thought m' father meant to stick to the diamonds! He sold 'em three years ago when he had that run of bad luck! Had 'em copied, so that no one was the wiser, not even my mother! He was as mad as Bedlam with me, and damme, I don't blame him, for if my Runner ran the necklace to earth there'd be the devil to pay, and no pitch hot! So that's why I'm here. But what beats me is, what in thunder brought you here?'
'You told me to run,' murmured Sir Richard.
'So I did, but to tell you the truth I never thought you would, dear boy. But why here? Out with it, Ricky! You never came here in search of Bev!'
'No, I didn't. I came upon purely—er—family affairs. I fancy you have never met my young cousin, Pen Brown?'
'Never knew you had a cousin of that name. Who is he?' said Cedric cheerfully.
Sir Richard made a slight movement, indicating Pen's presence. The room was deeply shadowed, for the waiter had not yet brought in the candles, and the twilight was fading. Cedric turned his head, and stared with narrowed eyes towards the window-seat, where Pen had been sitting, half hidden by the curtains. 'Damme, I never saw you!' he exclaimed. 'How d'ye do?'
'Mr Brandon, Pen,' Sir Richard explained.
She came forward to shake hands, just as the waiter entered with a couple of chandeliers. He set them down upon the table, and moved across the room to draw the curtains. The sudden glow of candlelight for a moment dazzled Cedric, but as he released Pen's hand his vision cleared, and became riveted on her guinea-gold curls. A portentous frown gathered on his brow, as he struggled with an erratic memory. 'Hey, wait a minute!' he said. 'I haven't seen you before, have I?'
'No, I don't think so,' replied Pen in a small voice.
'That's what I thought. But there's something about you—did you say he was a cousin of yours, Ricky?'
'A distant cousin,' amended Sir Richard.
'Name of Brown?'
Sir Richard sighed. 'Is it so marvellous?'
'Damme, dear boy, I've known you from m' cradle, but I never heard of any relative of yours called Brown! What's the game?'
'If I had guessed that you were so interested in the ramifications of my family, Cedric, I would have informed you of Pen's existence.'
The waiter, interested, but unable to prolong his labours in the parlour, slowly and sadly withdrew.
'Something devilish queer about this!' pronounced Cedric, with a shake of his head. 'Something at the back of my mind, too. Where's that burgundy?'
'Well, I thought at first that I had met you before,' offered Pen. 'But that was because of your likeness to the stam—to the other Mr Brandon.'
'Don't tell me you knew him!' exclaimed Cedric.
'Not very well. We happened to meet him here.'
'I'll tell you what, my lad: he was no fit company for a suckling like you,' said Cedric severely. He frowned upon her again, but apparently abandoned the effort to recall the errant memory, and turned back to Sir Richard. 'But your cousin don't explain your being here, Ricky. Damme, what did bring you to this place?'
'Chance,' replied Sir Richard. 'I was—er—constrained to escort my cousin to this neighbourhood, upon urgent family affairs. Upon the way, we encountered an individual who was being pursued by a Bow Street Runner—your Runner, Ceddie—and who slipped a certain necklace into my cousin's pocket.'
'You don't mean it! But did you know Bev was here?'
'By no means. That fact was only revealed to me when I overheard him exchanging somewhat unguarded recriminations with the man whom I suppose to have murdered him. To be brief with you, there were three of them mixed up in this lamentable affair, and one of the three had bubbled the other two. I restored the necklace to Beverley, on the understanding that it should go back to Saar.'
Cedric cocked an eyebrow. 'Steady now, Ricky, steady! I'm not cork-brained, dear old boy! Bev never consented to give the diamonds back—unless he was afraid you were going to mill his canister. Devilish lily-livered, Bev! Was that the way of it?'
'No,' said Sir Richard. 'That was not the way of it.'
'Ricky, you fool, don't tell me you bought him off!'
'I didn't.'
'Promised to, eh? I warned you! I warned you to have nothing to do with Bev! However, if he's dead there's no harm done! Go on!'
'There is really very little more to tell you. Beverley was found—by me—dead, in a spinney not far from here, last night. The necklace had vanished.'
'The devil it had! Y'know, Ricky, this is a damned ugly business! And, the more I think of it the less I understand why you left town in such a hurry, and without a word to anyone. Now, don't tell me you came on urgent family affairs, dear boy! You were disguised that night! Never seen you so foxed in my life! You said you were going to walk home, and by what the porter told George you had it fixed in your head your house was somewhere in the direction of Brook Street. Well, I'll lay anyone what odds they like you did not go to serenade Melissa! Damme, what did happen to you?'
'Oh, I went home!' said Sir Richard placidly.
'Yes, but where did this young sprig come into it?' demanded Cedric, casting a puzzled glance at Pen.
'On my doorstep. He had come to find me, you see.'
'No, damn it, Ricky, that won't do!' protested Cedric. 'Not at three in the morning, dear boy!'
'Of course not!' interposed Pen. 'I had been awaiting him—oh, for hours!'
'On the doorstep?' said Cedric incredulously.
'There were reasons why I did not wish the servants to know that I was in town,' explained Pen, with a false air of candour.
'Well, I never heard such a tale in my life!' said Cedric. 'It ain't like you, Ricky, it ain't like you! I called to see you myself next morning, and I found Louisa and George there, and the whole house in a pucker, with not a man-jack knowing where the devil you'd got to. Oh, by Jupiter, and George would have it you had drowned yourself!'
'Drowned myself! Good God, why?'
'Melissa, dear boy, Melissa!' chuckled Cedric. 'Bed not slept in—crumpled cravat in the grate—lock of—' He broke off, and jerked his head round to stare at Pen. 'By God, I have it! Now I know what was puzzling me! That hair! It was yours!'
'Oh, the devil!' said Sir Richard. 'So that was found, was it?'
'One golden curl under a shawl. George would have it it was a relic of your past. But hell and the devil confound it, it don't make sense! You never went to call on Ricky in the small hours to get your hair cut, boy!'
'No, but he said I wore my hair too long, and that he would not go about with me looking so,' said Pen desperately. 'And he didn't like my cravat either. He was drunk, you know.'
'He wasn't as drunk as that,' said Cedric. 'I don't know who you are, but you ain't Ricky's cousin. In fact, it's my belief you ain't even a boy! Damme, you're Ricky's past, that's what you are!'
'I am not!' said Pen indignantly. 'It is quite true that I'm not a boy, but I never saw Richard in my life until that night!'
'Never saw him until that night?' repeated Cedric, dazed.
'No! It was all chance, wasn't it, Richard?'
'It was,' agreed Sir Richard, who seemed to be amused. 'She dropped out of a window into my arms, Ceddie.'
'She dropped out of—give me some more burgundy!' said Cedric. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 13 | Having fortified himself from the decanter, Cedric sighed, and shook his head. 'No use, it still seems devilish odd to me. Females don't drop out of windows.'
'Well, I didn't drop out precisely. I climbed out, because I was escaping from my relations.'
'I've often wanted to escape from mine, but I never thought of climbing out of a window.'
'Of course not!' said Pen scornfully. 'You are a man!'
Cedric seemed dissatisfied. 'Only females escape out of windows? Something wrong there.'
'I think you are excessively stupid. I escaped out of the window because it was dangerous to go by the door. And Richard happened to be passing at the time, which was a very fortunate circumstance because the sheets were not long enough, and I had to jump."
'Do you mean to tell me you climbed down the sheets?' demanded Cedric.
'Yes, of course. How else could I have got out, pray?'
'Well, if that don't beat all!' he exclaimed admiringly.
'Oh, that was nothing! Only when Sir Richard guessed that I was not a boy he thought it would not be proper for me to journey to this place alone, so he took me to his house, and cut my hair more neatly at the back, and tied my cravat for me, and—and that is why you found those things in his library!'
Cedric cocked an eye at Sir Richard. "Damme, I knew you'd shot the cat, Ricky, but I never guessed you were as bosky as that!'
'Yes,' said Sir Richard reflectively, 'I fancy I must have been rather more up in the world than I suspected.'
'Up in the world! Dear old boy, you must have been clean raddled! And how the deuce did you get here? For I remember now that George said your horses were all in the stables. You never travelled in a hired chaise, Ricky!'
'Certainly not,' said Sir Richard. 'We travelled on the stage.'
'On the—on the—' Words failed Cedric.
'That was Pen's notion,' Sir Richard explained kindly. 'I must confess I was not much in favour of it, and I still consider the stage an abominable vehicle, but there is no denying we had a very adventurous journey. Really, to have gone post would have been sadly flat. We were over-turned in a ditch; we became—er—intimately acquainted with a thief; we found ourselves in possession of stolen goods; assisted in an elopement; and discovered a murder. I had not dreamt life could hold so much excitement.'
Cedric, who had been gazing at him open-mouthed, began to laugh. 'Lord, I shall never get over this! You, Ricky! Oh Lord, and there was Louisa ready to swear you would never do anything unbefitting a man of fashion, and George thinking you at the bottom of the river, and Melissa standing to it that you had gone off to watch a mill! Gad, she'll be as mad as fire! Out-jockeyed, by Jupiter! Piqued, repiqued, slammed, and capotted!' He once more mopped his eyes with the Belcher handkerchief. 'You'll have to buy me that pair of colours, Ricky: damme, you owe it to me, for I told you to run, now, didn't I?'
'But he did not run!' Pen said anxiously. 'It was I who ran. Richard didn't.'
'Oh yes, I did!' said Sir Richard taking snuff.
'No, no, you know you only came to take care of me; you said I could not go alone!'
Cedric looked at her in a puzzled way. 'Y'know, I can't make this out at all! If you only met three nights ago, you can't be eloping!'
'Of course we're not eloping! I came here on—on a private matter, and Richard pretended to be my tutor. There is not a question of eloping!'
'Tutor? Lord! I thought you said he was your cousin?'
'My dear Cedric, do try not to be so hidebound!' begged Sir Richard. 'I have figured as a tutor, an uncle, a trustee, and a cousin.'
'You seem to me to be a sad romp!' Cedric told Pen severely. 'How old are you?'
'I am seventeen, but I do not see that it is any concern of yours.'
'Seventeen!' Cedric cast a dismayed glance at Sir Richard. 'Ricky, you madman! You're in the basket now, the pair of you! And what your mother and Louisa will say, let alone that sour-faced sister of mine—! When is the wedding?'
'That,' said Sir Richard, 'is the point we were discussing when you walked in on us.'
'Better get married quietly somewhere where you ain't known. You know what people are!' Cedric said, wagging his head. 'Damme, if I won't be best man!'
'Well, you won't,' said Pen, flushing. 'We are not going to be married. It is quite absurd to think of such a thing.'
'I know it's absurd,' replied Cedric frankly. 'But you should have thought of that before you started jauntering about the country in this crazy fashion. There's nothing for it now: you'll have to be married!'
'I won't!' Pen declared. 'No one need ever know that I am not a boy, except you, and one other, who doesn't signify.'
'But my dear girl, it won't do! Take it from me, it won't do! If you don't know that, I'll be bound Ricky does. I daresay you don't fancy the notion, but he's a devilish fine catch, you know. Blister it, we were looking to him to bring our family fortunes about, so we were!' he added, with an irrepressible chuckle.
'I think you are vulgar and detestable!' said Pen. 'I have got a great deal of money of my own; in fact, I'm an heiress, and I have a very good mind not to marry anyone!'
'But only think what a waste!' protested Cedric. 'If you are an heiress, and you can't stomach the notion of marrying Ricky, for which I won't blame you, for the Lord knows he's no lady's man!—a hardened case, m'dear: never looked seriously at a female in his life!—I suppose you wouldn't make shift with your humble servant?'
'Your conversation, my dear Cedric, is always edifying,' said Sir Richard icily.
But Pen, instead of being offended, giggled. 'No, thank you. I shouldn't like to marry you at all.'
'I was afraid you wouldn't. You'll have to take Ricky, then: nothing else for it! But you're too young for him: no getting away from that! Damme, if I know what maggot got into your heads to set you off on this crazy adventure!'
'You are labouring under a misapprehension, Cedric,' said Sir Richard. 'There is nothing I desire more than to marry Pen.'
'Well, of all things!' gasped Cedric. 'And here was I thinking you a hopeless case!'
'I am going to bed,' stated Pen.
Sir Richard moved across the door to open it for her. 'Yes my child: go to bed. But pray do not let Cedric's artless chatter prejudice you! For addle-pated folly I have never met his equal.' He possessed himself of her hand, as he spoke, and lifted it to his lips. 'Pleasant dreams, brat,' he said softly.
She felt a lump rise in her throat, achieved a tremulous smile, and fled, but not before she had heard Cedric exclaim in tones of the liveliest surprise: 'Ricky, you ain't really in love with that chit, are you?'
'I think,' said Sir Richard, closing the door, 'that we shall be more usefully employed in discussing the circumstances which brought you here, Cedric.'
'Oh, by all means!' Cedric said hastily. 'Beg pardon! No intention of prying into your affairs, dear boy; not the least in the world! Now, don't get into a miff! You know how it is with me! Never could keep a discreet tongue in my head!'
'That is what I am afraid of,' Sir Richard said dryly.
'Mum as an oyster!' Cedric assured him. 'But that you of all men, Ricky—! That's what beats me! However, no concern of mine! What's all this you were telling me about Bev?'
'He's dead. That seems to be the most important thing.'
'Well, it's no good expecting me to pull a long face over it. He was a bad man, take my word for it! What was he doing in this spinney you talk of?'
'As a matter of fact, he went there to meet me,' said Sir Richard.
Cedric frowned at him. 'More in this than meets the eye. Why, Ricky?'
'To be plain with you, he had hit upon the notion of extorting money from me by threatening to make known the fact that my supposed cousin was a girl in disguise.'
'Yes, that's Bev all over,' nodded Cedric, quite unsurprised. 'Offered to pay his debts, didn't you?'
'Oh, I had offered that earlier in the day! Unfortunately Captain Trimble learned of my appointment with Beverley in the spinney, and went there before me. I fancy he had nothing more than robbery in mind. There was a witness to the meeting, who described how a quarrel sprang up, and how Trimble struck Beverley down, searched his pockets, and made off. Possibly he thought he had merely stunned him. When I found him his neck was broken.'
'Jupiter!' said Cedric, giving a whistle of consternation. 'It's worse than I thought, then! The devil! There will be no hushing this up. They don't suspect you of having a hand in it, do they, Ricky?'
'I am fast acquiring a most unsavoury reputation in this neighbourhood, but so far I have not been arrested for murder. What precise object had you in coming here?'
'Why, to choke the truth out of Bev, of course! Couldn't get it out of my head he was at the bottom of that robbery. He was badly dipped, y'know. M' father wants my bloodhound called off, too, but I'm damned if I can come up with any trace of him. If you met the fellow on the Bristol road, that would account for my missing him. I went to Bath. Last I heard of Bev was that he was there, with Freddie Fotheringham. Freddie told me Bev had gone off to stay with some people called Luttrell, living at a place near here. So I saw m' mother, got the full story of the robbery out of her, and came on here. Now what's to do?'
'You had better make the acquaintance of the local magistrate. A man who might well be Trimble was taken up in Bath to-day, but whether the necklace was on him I know not.'
'Must lay my hands on that plaguey necklace!' frowned Cedric. 'Won't do if the truth about that were to come out. But what are you going to do, Ricky? It seems to me you're in the deuce of a coil too.'
'I shall no doubt be able to answer that question when I have talked the matter over with Pen tomorrow,' Sir Richard replied.
But Sir Richard was not destined to have the opportunity of talking over any matter with Miss Creed upon the morrow. Miss Creed, going dejectedly up to bed, sat for a long time at the open window of her room, and gazed blindly out upon the moonlit scene. She had spent, she decided, quite the most miserable day of her life, and the sudden incursion of Cedric Brandon had done nothing to alleviate her heaviness of heart. It was apparent that Cedric considered her adventure only one degree less fantastic than the notion that she was to marry Sir Richard. According to his own words, he had known Sir Richard from the cradle, so that it was fair to assume that he was very well acquainted with him. He gave it as his opinion that she must marry Sir Richard, which was tantamount to saying, she reflected, that she had put Sir Richard into the uncomfortable position of being obliged to offer for her. It was most unjust, Pen thought, for Sir Richard had not been sober when he had insisted on accompanying her into Somerset, and he had, moreover, done it out of sheer solicitude for her safety. It had not occurred to her that a gentleman so many years her senior could be supposed to compromise her, or to engage his own honour so disastrously. She had liked him from the moment of setting eyes on him; she had plunged into terms of intimacy with him in the shortest possible time; and had, indeed, felt as though she had known him all her life. She thought herself more stupid even than Lydia Daubenay not to have realized before ever they had reached Queen Charlton, that she had tumbled headlong in love with him. She had refused to look beyond her meeting with Piers, yet she could not but admit to herself now that she had been by no means anxious to summon Piers to her side when she had arrived at the George. By the time she did come face to face with him, he would have had to have been a paragon indeed to have won her from Sir Richard.
His conduct had been anything rather than that of a paragon. He had spoiled everything, Pen thought. He had accused her of impropriety, and had forced Sir Richard into making a declaration he had surely not wanted to make.
'Because I don't suppose he loves me at all,' Pen argued to herself. 'He never said so until Piers was so odious: in fact, he treated me just as if he really was a trustee, or an uncle, or somebody years and years older than I am, which I dare say was what made it all seem quite proper to me, and not in the least scandalous. Only then we fell into so many adventures, and he was obliged to fob off Aunt Almeria, and then the stammering-man guessed I was a girl, and Piers was disagreeable, and I got into a scrape through Lydia's folly, and the Major came, and now this other Mr Brandon knows about me, and the end of it is I have placed poor Richard in the horridest situation imaginable! There is only one thing for it: I shall have to run away.'
This decision, however, made her feel so melancholy that several large tears brimmed over her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away, telling herself it was stupid to cry. 'Because if he doesn't want to marry me, I don't want to marry him—much; and if he does, I dare say he will come to visit me at Aunt's house. No, he won't. He'll forget all about me, or very likely be glad that he is rid of a badly behaved, tiresome ch-charge! Oh dear!'
So sunk in these dismal reflections did she become that it was a long time before she could rouse herself sufficiently to prepare for bed. She even forgot the elopement she had helped to arrange, and heard the church-clock strike midnight without so much as recalling that Lydia should now be stepping up into the hired postchaise, with or without a cage of love-birds.
She spent a miserable night, disturbed by unquiet dreams, and tossing from side to side in a way that soon untucked all the sheets and blankets, and made the bed so uncomfortable that by six in the morning, when she finally awoke to find the room full of sunlight, she was very glad to leave it.
A considerable portion of her waking hours had been spent in considering how she could run away without Sir Richard's knowing anything about it. A carrier was used to go into Bristol on certain days, she remembered, and she made up her mind either to buy a seat on his wagon, or, if it was not one of his days, to walk to Bristol, and there book a seat on the London stagecoach. Bristol was not more than six or seven miles distant from Queen Charlton, and there was, moreover, a reasonable hope of being offered a lift in some conveyance bound for the town.
She dressed herself, and very nearly started to cry again when she struggled with the folds of the starched muslin, cravat, because it was one of Sir Richard's. Once dressed, she packed her few belongings in the cloak-bag he had lent her, and tiptoed downstairs to the parlour.
The servants, though she could hear them moving about in the coffee-room and the kitchen, had not yet come into the parlour to draw back the blinds, and to set the room to rights. In its untidy, overnight state it looked dispiriting. Pen pulled the blinds apart, and sat down at the writing-table to compose a letter of farewell to Sir Richard.
It was a very difficult letter to write, and seemed to entail much nose-blowing, and many watery sniffs. When she had at last finished it, Pen read it through rather dubiously, and tried to erase a blot. It was not a satisfactory letter, but there was no time to write another, so she folded, and sealed it, wrote Sir Richard's name on it and propped it up on the mantelpiece.
In the entrance-parlour she encountered the pessimistic waiter who had served them on the previous evening. His eyes seemed even duller than usual, and beyond staring in a ruminative fashion at her cloak-bag, he evinced no interest in Pen's early rising.
She explained to him glibly that she was obliged to go into Bristol, and asked if the carrier would be passing the George. The waiter said that he would not be passing, because Friday was not his day. 'If you had wanted him yesterday, it would have been different,' he added reproachfully.
She sighed. "Then I shall be obliged to walk.'
The waiter accepted this without interest, but just as she reached the door he bethought him of something, and said in a voice of unabated gloom: 'The missus is going to Bristol in the trap.'
'Do you think she would take me with her?'
The waiter declined to offer an opinion, but he volunteered to go and ask the missus. However, Pen decided to go herself, and, penetrating to the yard at the back of the inn, found the landlord's wife packing a basket into the trap, and preparing to mount into it herself.
She was surprised at Pen's request, and eyed the cloak-bag with suspicion, but she was a stout, good-natured woman, and upon Pen's assuring her mendaciously that Sir Richard was well-aware of her projected expedition, she allowed her to get into the trap, and to stow the cloak-bag under the seat. Her son, a phlegmatic young man, who chewed a straw throughout the journey, took the reins, and in a few minutes the whole party was proceeding up the village street at a sober but steady pace.
'Well, I only hopes, sir, as I'm not doing wrong,' said Mrs Hopkins, as soon as she had recovered from the exertion of hoisting her bulk into the trap. 'I'm sure I was never one to pry into other folks' business, but if you was running away from the gentleman which has you in charge, I should get into trouble, that's what.'
'Oh no, indeed you won't!' Pen assured her. 'You see, we have not our own carriage with us, or—or I should not have been obliged to trouble you in this way.'
Mrs Hopkins said that she was not one to grudge trouble, and added that she was glad of company. When she discovered Pen had had no breakfast, she was very much shocked, and after much tugging and wheezing, pulled out the basket from under the seat, and produced out of it a large packet of sandwiches, a pie wrapped in a napkin, and a bottle of cold tea. Pen accepted a sandwich, but refused the pie, a circumstance which made Mrs Hopkins say that although the young gentleman would have been welcome to it, it was, in point of fact, a gift for her aunt, who lived in Bristol. She further disclosed that she was bound for the town to meet her sister's second girl, who was coming down on the London stage to work as a chambermaid at the George. The ball of conversation having been set rolling in this easy fashion, the journey passed pleasantly enough, Mrs Hopkins furnishing Pen with so exhaustive an account of the various trials and vicissitudes which had befallen every member of her family, that by the time the trap drew up at an inn in the centre of Bristol, Pen felt that there could be little she did not know about the good lady's relatives.
The stage was not due to arrive in Bristol until nine o'clock, at which hour the coach setting out for London would leave the inn. Mrs Hopkins set off to visit her aunt, and Pen, having booked a seat on the stage, and deposited the cloak-bag at the inn, sallied forth to lay out her last remaining coins on provisions to sustain her during the journey.
The streets were rather empty at such an early hour, and some of the shops had not yet taken down their shutters, but after walking for a few minutes and observing with interest the changes which, in five years, had taken place in the town, Pen found a cook-shop that was open. The smell of freshly baked pies made her feel hungry, and she went into the shop, and made a careful selection of the viands offered for sale.
When she came out of the shop, there was still half-an-hour to while away before the coach was due to start, and she wandered into the market-place. Here there were quite a number of people already busy about the day's business. Pen caught sight of Mrs Hopkins bargaining with a salesman over the price of a length of calico, but since she did not feel that she wanted to learn any more details about the Hopkins family, she avoided her, and pretended to be interested in a clockmaker's shop. So intent was she on avoiding Mrs Hopkins's motherly eye, that she was blissfully unaware that she herself was being closely scrutinized by a thickset man in a duffle coat, and a wide-brimmed hat, who, after gazing fixedly at her for some moments, stepped up to her, and, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder, said deeply: 'Got you!'
Pen jumped guiltily, and looked round in sudden alarm. The voice sounded familiar; to her dismay she found herself staring up into the face of the Bow Street Runner who had overtaken Jimmy Yarde at the inn near Wroxhall.
'Oh!' she said faintly. 'Oh! Are you not the—the man I met—the other day? Good—good-morning! A fine day, isn't—isn't it?'
'That's so, young sir,' said the Runner, in a grim tone. 'And a werry complete hand you be, and no mistake! I've been wanting another touch at you. Ah, and when Nat Gudgeon wants a touch at a cove, he gets it, and no mistake about that neither! You come along with me!'
'But I haven't done anything wrong! Indeed I haven't!' said Pen.
'If you haven't, then there's no call for you to be scared of me,' said Mr Gudgeon, with what seemed to her a fiendish leer. 'But what I been thinking, young sir, is, that you and that fine gentleman what was with you loped off mighty quick from that there inn. Why, anyone might have thought, so they might, as how you had took an unaccountable dislike to me!'
'No, no, we didn't! But there was nothing to stay for, and we were already much delayed.'
'Well,' said Mr Gudgeon, shifting his grip to her arm, and grasping this firmly above the elbow, 'I've got a fancy to question you more particular, young sir. Now, don't you make the werry great mistake of trying to struggle with me, because it won't do you no good. Maybe you ain't never heard tell on a cove by the name o' Yarde: likewise you wouldn't reckernize a set o' sparklers if you was to see one. Lor'! If I had a brace of meggs for every green-looking young chub like you which I've took up—ah, and shut up in the Whit just as snug as you please!—I'd be a werry rich man, so I would. You come along of me, and stop trying to gammon me, because I've got a werry strong notion you know a deal more about a certain set o' sparklers nor what you're wishful I should get wind of.'
By this time, the attention of several persons had been attracted, and a small crowd was beginning to gather. Pen cast a hunted look around. She saw the aghast face of Mrs Hopkins, but no means of escape, and gave herself up for lost. Mr Gudgeon evidently meant to march her off to the gaol, or at any rate to some place of safe-keeping, where her sex, she suspected, would soon be discovered. Meanwhile, the crowd was swelling, several members of it loudly demanding to know what the young gentleman had done, and one knowledgeable individual explaining to his neighbours that that was one of the Bow Street Runners from London, that was. Nothing would serve her, Pen decided, but a certain measure of frankness. Accordingly, she made no attempt to break away from the Runner's hold, but said in as calm a tone as she was able to assume: 'Indeed, I do not mind going with you at all. In fact, I know just what you want, and I dare say I can furnish you with some very valuable information.'
Mr Gudgeon, who was not accustomed to be met with any appearance of sang-froid, was not in the least softened by this speech. He said in a shocked voice: 'There's a sauce! Ay, you're a rare gager, young as you be! Why, you young varmint, and you with your mother's milk not dry on your lips! You come along, and no bamming, now!'
A section of the crowd showed a disposition to accompany them, but Mr Gudgeon addressed these gentry in such fierce accents that they dispersed in a hurry, and left him to escort his captive out of the market-place in lonely state.
'You are making a great mistake,' Pen told the Runner. 'You are searching for the Brandon diamonds, are you not? Well, I know all about them, and, as a matter of fact, Mr Brandon wishes you to stop searching for them.'
'Ho!' said Mr Gudgeon, with deep meaning. 'He does, does he? Dang me, if ever I see the equal of you for sauce!'
'I wish you will listen to me! I know who has the diamonds, and, what is more, he murdered the other Mr Brandon to get them!'
Mr Gudgeon shook his head in speechless wonder.
'He did, I tell you!' Pen said desperately. 'His name is Trimble, and he was in a plot with Jimmy Yarde to steal the necklace! Only it went awry, and the necklace was restored to Mr Beverley Brandon, and then Captain Trimble killed him, and made off with the diamonds. And Mr Cedric Brandon is searching for you high and low, and if you will only go to Queen Charlton you will find him there, and he will tell you that what I say is true!'
'I never heard the like!' gasped Mr Gudgeon, affronted. 'A werry thorough-going young rascal you be, and no mistake about that! And how might you come to know such a powerful deal about these sparklers, might I take the liberty of asking?'
'I know Mr. Brandon well,' answered Pen. 'Both Mr Brandons! And I was in Queen Charlton when the murder was committed. Mr Philips, the magistrate, knows all about me, I assure you!'
Mr Gudgeon was a little shaken by this announcement, and said more mildly: 'I don't say as I disbelieve you, nor I don't say as I believe you neither; but it's an unaccountable queer story you're telling me, young sir, and that's a fact.'
'Yes, I dare say it may seem so to you,' Pen agreed. She felt his grip slacken on her arm, and decided to press home her advantage. 'You had better come with me to Queen Charlton at once, because Mr Brandon wants to see you, and I expect Mr Philips will be very glad of your help in finding Captain Trimble.'
Mr Gudgeon looked at her sideways. 'Either I've been mistook,' he said slowly, 'or you're the most precious young warmint I ever did see. Maybe I will go to this place you talks about, and maybe while I'm gone you'll sit waiting for me where you won't do no harm.'
They had turned into a broad thoroughfare with streets leading off from it on either side. Pen, who had no intention of returning to Queen Charlton, or of being locked up in Bristol gaol, made up her mind, now that Mr Gudgeon's grasp on her arm had become little more than perfunctory, to try the chances of escape. She said airily: 'Just as you please, only I warn you, Mr Brandon will be excessively angry if he hears that you have molested me. Naturally, I do not wish to—Oh, look, look! Quick!'
They were abreast of one of the side streets by this time, and Pen's admirable start brought the Runner to a dead halt. She clasped his arm with her free hand, and exclaimed: 'Over there, just turning into that road! It was he! Captain Trimble! He must have seen me, for he set off running at once! oh, do be quick!'
'Where?' demanded Mr Gudgeon, taken off his guard, and looking round wildly.
'There!' panted Pen, and tore herself free from his hold, and ran like a deer down the side-street.
She heard a shout behind her, but wasted no time in looking back. A woman engaged in scrubbing her front doorstep set up a cry of Stop, thief! and an errand boy with a large basket on his arm, gave a shrill cat-call. Pen reached the end of the street with the sound of the hue and cry behind her, turned the corner, saw an alley leading to a huddle of mean dwellings, and sped down it.
It led her into a labyrinth of narrow streets, with dirty gutters, and crazy cottages, and backyards noisome with the refuse left to rot in them. She had never penetrated into this part of the town before, and was soon quite lost. This circumstance did not trouble her much, however, for the noise of the chase had died away in the rear. She did not think that anyone had seen her dive into the alley so that she was able to entertain a reasonable hope of shaking off the pursuit. She stopped running, and began to walk, rather breathlessly, in what she trusted was an easterly direction. After traversing a number of unknown streets, she came at last to a more respectable part of the town, and ventured to enquire the way to the inn where she had left her cloak-bag. She discovered that she had overshot it, and, further, that the time was now a few minutes after nine. She looked so dismayed that her informant, a stout man in corduroys and a frieze coat, who was just preparing to climb into a gig, asked her whether she wanted the London stagecoach. Upon her admitting that she did, he said philosophically: 'Well, you've missed it.'
'Oh dear, what shall I do?' said Pen, foreseeing a day spent in skulking about the town to escape discovery by Mr Gudgeon.
The farmer, who had been looking her over in a ruminative fashion, said: 'Be you in a hurry?'
'Yes, yes! That is, I have paid for my seat, you see.'
'Well, I'm going to Kingswood myself,' said the farmer. 'You can get up alongside me in the gig, if you like. You'll likely catch up with the stage there.'
She accepted this offer gratefully, for she thought that even if she did not succeed in overtaking the stage she would be safer from Mr Gudgeon at Kingswood than in Bristol. Happily, however, the farmer was driving a fast-trotting young horse, and they reached the main London road before the heavy stage had drawn out of the town. The farmer set Pen down in Kingswood, at the door of the inn, and having ascertained that the coach had not yet called there, bade her a cheerful farewell, and drove off.
Feeling that she had escaped disaster by no more than a hair's breadth, Pen sat down upon the bench outside the inn to await the arrival of the stage. It was late in coming, and the guard, when Pen handed him her ticket, seemed to take it as a personal affront that she had not boarded it in Bristol. He told her, with malign satisfaction, that her cloak-bag had been left behind at the 'Talbot' Inn, but after a good deal of grumbling he admitted that she had a right to a seat in the coach, and let down the steps for her to mount into it. She squeezed herself into a place between a fat man, and a woman nursing a peevish infant; the door was shut, the steps let up again, and the vehicle resumed its ponderous journey to London. |
The Corinthian | Georgette Heyer | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"regency"
] | Chapter 14 | Sir Richard Wyndham was not an early riser, but he was roused from sleep at an unconscionably early hour upon the morning of Pen's flight by the boots, who came into his room with a small pile of his linen, which had been laundered in the inn, and his top-boots, and told him diffidently that he was wanted belowstairs.
Sir Richard groaned, and enquired what time it was. With even greater diffidence, the boots said that it was not quite eight o'clock.
'What the devil?' exclaimed Sir Richard, bending a pained glance upon him.
'Yes, sir,' agreed the boots feelingly, 'but it's that Major Daubenay, sir, in such a pucker as you never did see!'
'Oh!' said Sir Richard. 'It is, is it? The devil fly away with Major Daubenay!'
The boots grinned, but awaited more precise instructions. Sir Richard groaned again, and sat up. 'You think I ought to get up, do you? Bring me my shaving water, then.'
'Yessir!'
'Oh, ah! Present my compliments to the Major, and inform him that I shall be with him shortly!'
The boots went off to execute these commands, and Sir Richard, surveying the beauty of the morning with a jaundiced eye, got out of bed.
When the boots came back with a jug of hot water, he found Sir Richard in his shirt and breeches, and reported that the Major was pacing up and down the parlour more like a wild beast in a circus than a Christian gentleman.
'You appal me,' said Sir Richard unemotionally. 'Just hand me my boots, will you? Alas! Biddle, I never realized your worth until I was bereft of you!'
'Beg pardon, sir?'
'Nothing,' said Sir Richard, inserting his foot into one of the boots, and pulling hard.
Half an hour later he entered the parlour to find his matutinal guest fuming up and down the floor with a large watch in his hand. The Major, whose cheeks were unbecomingly flushed, and whose eyes started quite alarmingly, stabbed at this timepiece with one quivering finger, and said in a suppressed roar: 'Forty minutes, sir! Forty minutes since I entered this room!'
'Yes, I have even surprised myself,' said Sir Richard, with maddening nonchalance. 'Time was when I could not have achieved this result under an hour, but practice, my dear sir, practice, you know, is everything!'
'An hour!' gobbled the Major. 'Practice! Bah, I say! Do you hear me, sir?'
'Yes,' said Sir Richard, flicking a speck of dust from his sleeve. 'And I imagine I am not the only one privileged to hear you.'
'You are a dandy!' uttered the Major, with loathing. 'A dandy, sir! That's what you are!'
'Well, I am glad that the haste with which I dressed has not obscured that fact,' replied Sir Richard amiably. 'But the correct term is Corinthian.'
'I don't care a fig what the correct term may be!' roared the Major, striking the table with his fist. 'It's all the same to me: dandy, Corinthian, or pure popinjay!'
'If I lose my temper with you, which, however, I should be loth to do—at all events, at this hour of the morning—you will discover that you are mistaken,' said Sir Richard. 'Meanwhile, I presume that you did not bring me out of my bed to exchange compliments with me. What, sir, do you want?'
'Don't take that high and mighty tone with me, sir!' said the Major. 'That whelp of yours has made off with my daughter!'
'Nonsense!' said Sir Richard calmly.
'Nonsense, is it? Then let me tell you that she has gone, sir! Gone, do you hear me? And her maid with her!'
'Accept my condolences,' said Sir Richard.
'Your condolences! I don't want your damned condolences, sir! I want to know what you mean to do!'
'Nothing at all,' replied Sir Richard.
The Major's eyes positively bulged, and a vein stood out on his heated brow. 'You stand there, and say that you mean to do nothing, when your scoundrel of a cousin has eloped with my daughter?'
'Not at all. I mean to do nothing because my cousin has not eloped with your daughter. You must forgive me if I point out to you that I am getting a little weary of your parental difficulties.'
'How dare you, sir? how dare you?' gasped the Major. 'Your cousin meets my daughter by stealth in Bath, lures her out at dead of night here, deceives her with false promises, and now—now, to crown all, makes off with her, and you say—you say that you are weary of my difficulties!'
'Very weary of them. If your daughter has left your roof—and who shall blame her?—I advise you not to waste your time and my patience here, but to enquire at Crome Hall whether Mr Piers Luttrell is at home, or whether he also is missing.'
'Young Luttrell! By God, if it were so I should be glad of it! Ay, glad of it, and glad that any man rather than that vicious, scoundrelly whelp of yours, had eloped with Lydia!'
'Well, that is a fortunate circumstance,' said Sir Richard.
'It is nothing of the kind! You know very well it is not young Luttrell! She herself confessed that she had been in the habit of meeting your cousin, and the young dog said in this very room—in this very room, mark you, with you standing by—'
'My good sir, your daughter and my cousin talked a great deal of nonsense, but I assure you they have not eloped together.'
'Very well, sir, very well! Where then is your cousin at this moment?'
'In his bed, I imagine.'
'Then send for him!' barked the Major.
'As you please,' Sir Richard said, and strolled over to the bell, and pulled it.
He had scarcely released it when the door opened, and the Honourable Cedric walked in, magnificently arrayed in a brocade dressing-gown of vivid and startling design. 'What the deuce is the matter?' he asked plaintively. 'Never heard such an ungodly racket in my life! Ricky, dear old boy, you ain't dressed?'
'Yes,' sighed Sir Richard. 'It is a great bore, however.'
'But, my dear fellow, it ain't nine o'clock!' said Cedric in horrified tones. 'Damme if I know what has come over you! You can't start the day at this hour: it ain't decent!'
'I know, Ceddie, but when in Rome, one—er—is obliged to cultivate the habits of the Romans. Ah, allow me to present Major Daubenay—Mr Brandon!'
'Servant, sir!' snapped the Major, with the stiffest of bows.
'Oh, how d'ye do?' said Cedric vaguely. 'Deuced queer hours you keep in the country!'
'I am not here upon a visit of courtesy!' said the Major.
'Now, don't tell me you've been quarrelling, Ricky!' begged Cedric. 'It sounded devilish like it to me. Really, dear boy, you might have remembered I was sleeping above you. Never at my best before noon, y"know. Besides, it ain't like you!'
He lounged, yawning, across the room to an armchair by the fireplace, and dropped into it, stretching his long legs out before him. The Major glared at him, and said pointedly that he had come to see Sir Richard upon a private matter.
This hint passed over Cedric's head. 'What we want is some coffee—strong coffee!' he said.
A maidservant in a mobbed cap came in just then, and seemed astonished to find the room occupied. 'Oh, I beg pardon, sir! I thought the bell rang!'
'It did,' said Sir Richard. 'Have the goodness to tap on Mr Brown's door, and to request him to step downstairs as soon as he shall have dressed. Major Daubenay wishes to speak to him.'
'Hey, wait a minute!' commanded Cedric. 'Bring some coffee first, there's a good girl!'
'Yes, sir,' said the maid, looking flustered.
'Coffee!' exploded Major Daubenay.
Cedric cocked an intelligent eyebrow. 'Don't like the notion? What shall it be? Myself, I think it's too early for brandy, but if you fancy a can of ale, say the word!'
'I want nothing, sir! Sir Richard, while we waste time in such idle fripperies as these, that young dog is abducting my daughter!'
'Fetch Mr Brown,' Sir Richard told the servant.
'Abduction, by Jupiter!' said Cedric. 'What young dog?'
'Major Daubenay,' said Sir Richard, 'is labouring under the delusion that my cousin eloped last night with his daughter.'
'Eh?' Cedric blinked. An unholy gleam stole into his eyes as he glanced from Sir Richard to the Major; he said unsteadily: 'No, by Jove, you don't mean it? You ought to keep him in better order, Ricky!'
'Yes!' said the Major. 'He ought indeed! But instead of that he has— I will not say abetted the young scoundrel—but adopted an attitude which I can only describe as Callous, sir, and supine!'
Cedric shook his head. 'That's Ricky all over.' His gravity broke down. 'Oh lord, what the deuce put it into your head your daughter had gone off with his cousin? I'll tell you what, it's the richest jest I've heard in months! Ricky, if I don't roast you for this for years to come!'
'You are going to the Peninsula, Ceddie,' Sir Richard said, with a lurking smile.
'You are amused, sir!' the Major said, bristling.
'Lord, yes, and so would you be if you knew as much about Wyndham's cousin as I do!'
The maidservant came back into the room. 'Oh, if you please, sir! Mr Brown's not in his room,' she said, dropping a curtsey.
The effect of this pronouncement was startling. The Major gave a roar like that of a baffled bull; Cedric's laughter was cut short; and Sir Richard let his eyeglass fall.
'I knew it! Oh, I knew it!' raged the Major. 'Now, sir!'
Sir Richard recovered himself swiftly. 'Pray do not be absurd, sir!' he said, with more asperity than Cedric ever remembered to have heard in his voice before. 'My cousin has in all probability stepped out to enjoy the air. He is an early riser.'
'If you please, sir, the young gentleman has taken his cloak-bag with him.'
The Major seemed to be having considerable difficulty in holding his fury within bounds. Cedric, observing his gobblings with a sapient eye, begged him to be careful. 'I knew a man once who got into just such a taking. He burst a blood-vessel. True as I sit here!'
The maidservant, upon whom the Honourable Cedric's charm of manner had not fallen unappreciated, smothered a giggle, and twisted one corner of her apron into a screw. 'There was a letter for your honour upon the mantelshelf when I did the room out,' she volunteered.
Sir Richard swung round on his heel, and went to the fireplace. Pen's note, which she had propped up against the clock, had fallen down, and so missed his eye. He picked it up, a little pale of countenance, and retired with it to the window.
'My dear Richard,' Pen had written. 'This is to say goodbye to you, and to thank you very much for all your kindness. I have made up my mind to return to Aunt Almeria, for the notion of our being obliged to marry is preposterous. I shall tell her some tale that will satisfy her. Dear sir, it was truly a splendid adventure. Your very obliged servant, Penelope Creed.
'P.S. I will send back your cravats and the cloak-bag, and indeed I thank you, dear Richard.'
Cedric, watching his friend's rigid face, dragged himself out of his chair, and lounged across to lay a hand on Sir Richard's shoulder. 'Ricky, dear boy! Now, what is it?'
'I demand to see that letter!' barked the Major.
Sir Richard folded the sheet, and slipped it into his inner pocket. 'Be content, sir: my cousin has not eloped with your daughter.'
'I don't believe you!'
'If you mean to give me the lie—' Sir Richard checked himself, and turned to the abigail. 'When did Mr Brown leave this place?'
'I don't know, sir. But Parks was downstairs—the waiter, sir.'
'Fetch him.'
'If your cousin has not gone off with my daughter, show me that letter!' demanded the Major.
The Honourable Cedric let his hand fall from Sir Richard's shoulder, and strolled into the middle of the room, an expression of disdain upon his aristocratic countenance. 'You, sir—Daubenay, or whatever your name may be—I don't know what maggot's got into your head, but damme, I'm tired of it! For the lord's sake, go away!'
'I shall not stir from this room until I know the truth!' declared the Major. 'I should not be surprised if I found that you were both in league with that young whipper-snapper!'
'Damme, there's something devilish queer about the air of this place!' said Cedric. 'It's my belief you're all mad!'
At this moment the gloomy waiter came into the room. His disclosure that Pen had gone to Bristol with Mrs Hopkins made Sir Richard's face assume a more masklike expression than ever, but they could not fail to assuage one at least of the Major's alarms. He mopped his brow, and said gruffly that he saw that he had made a mistake.
'That's what we've been telling you,' Cedric pointed out. 'I'll tell you another thing, sir: I want my breakfast, and I'll be damned if I'll sit down to it with you dancing about the room, and shouting in my ear. It ain't restful!'
'But I don't understand!' complained the Major in a milder tone. 'She said she went out to meet your cousin, sir!'
'I have already told you, sir, that your daughter and my cousin both talked a deal of nonsense,' said Sir Richard, over his shoulder.
'You mean she said it to make me believe—to throw dust in my eyes? Upon my soul!'
'Now, don't start that again!' begged Cedric.
'She has gone off with young Luttrell!' exploded the Major. 'By God, I'll break every bone in his body!'
'Well, we don't mind that,' said Cedric. 'You go and do it, sir! Don't waste a moment! Waiter, the door!'
'Good God, this is terrible!' exclaimed the Major, sinking into a chair, and clapping a hand to his brow. 'Depend upon it, they are half-way to the Scottish border by now! As though that were not enough! But there is Philips wanting me to take that wretched girl to Bath this morning, to see whether she can recognize some fellow they have caught there! What am I to say to him? The scandal! My poor wife! I left her prostrate!'
'Run back to her at once!' urged Cedric. 'You have not a moment to spare! Tell me, though, had this fellow the diamonds upon him?'
The Major made a gesture as of one brushing aside a gnat. 'What should I care for that? It is my misguided child I am thinking about!'
'I dare say you don't care, but I do. The man who was murdered was my brother, and those diamonds belong to my family!'
'Your brother? Good Gad, sir, I am astonished!' said the Major, glaring at him. 'No one—no one, believe me!—would credit you with having sustained such a loss! Your levity, your—'
'Never mind my levity, old gentleman! Has that damned necklace been found?'
'Yes, sir, I understand that the prisoner had a necklace in his possession. And if that is your only concern in this appalling affair—'
'Ricky, I must get my hands on that necklace. I hate to leave you, dear boy, but there's nothing for it! Where the devil's that coffee? Can't go without my breakfast!' He caught sight of the waiter, who had reappeared in the doorway. 'You there! What the devil do you mean by standing gaping? Breakfast, you gaby!'
'Yes, sir,' said the waiter, sniffing. 'And what will I tell the lady, sir, if you please?'
'Tell her we ain't receiving!—What lady?'
The waiter proffered a tray with a visiting card upon it. 'For Sir Richard Wyndham,' he said lugubriously. 'She would be obleeged by the favour of a word with him.'
Cedric picked up the card, and read aloud: 'Lady Luttrell. Who the deuce is Lady Luttrell, Ricky?'
'Lady Luttrell!' said the Major, starting up. 'Here? Ha, is this some dastardly plot?'
Sir Richard turned, a look of surprise in his face. 'Show the lady in!' he said.
'Well, I always knew country life would never do for me,' remarked Cedric, 'but damme, I never realized one half of it till now! Not nine o'clock, and the better part of the county paying morning calls! Horrible, Ricky, horrible!'
Sir Richard had turned away from the window, and was watching the door, his brows slightly raised. The waiter ushered in a good-looking woman of between forty and fifty years of age, with brown hair flecked with grey, shrewd, humorous eyes, and a somewhat masterful mouth and chin. Sir Richard moved to meet her, but before he could say anything the Major had burst into speech.
'So, ma'am! So!' he shot out. 'You wish to see Sir Richard Wyndham, do you? You did not expect to meet me here, I dare say!'
'No,' agreed the lady composedly. 'I did not. However, since we shall be obliged, I understand, to meet one another in future with an appearance at least of complaisance, we may as well make a start. How do you do, Major?'
'Upon my word, you are mighty cool, ma'am! Pray, are you aware that your son has eloped with my daughter?'
'Yes,' replied Lady Luttrell. 'My son left a letter behind to inform me of this circumstance.'
Her calm seemed to throw the Major out of his stride. He said rather lamely: 'But what are we to do?'
She smiled. 'We have nothing to do but to accept the event with as good a grace as we can. You do not like the match, and nor do I, but to pursue the young couple, or to show the world our disapproval, will only serve to make us both ridiculous.' She looked him over with a rather mocking light in her eyes, but he seemed so much taken aback, that she relented, and held out her hand to him. 'Come, Major! We may as well bury the hatchet. I cannot be estranged from my only son; you, I am persuaded, would be equally loth to disown your daughter.'
He shook hands with her, not very graciously. 'I do not know what to say! I am utterly confounded! They have behaved very ill towards us, very ill indeed!'
'Oh yes!' she sighed. 'But did we perhaps behave ill towards them?'
This was plainly going too far for the Major, whose eyes began to bulge again. Cedric intervened hastily: 'Don't set him off again, ma'am, for lord's sake!'
'Hold your tongue, sir!' snapped the Major. 'But you came here to see Sir Richard Wyndham, ma'am! How is this?'
'I came to see Sir Richard Wyndham upon quite another matter,' she replied. Her glance dwelled for an instant on Cedric, and travelled past him to Sir Richard. 'And you, I think, must be Sir Richard Wyndham,' she said.
He bowed. 'I am at your service, ma'am. Permit me to present Mr Brandon to you!'
She looked quickly towards Cedric. 'Ah, I thought your face familiar! Sir, I hardly know what to say to you, except that I am more deeply distressed than I am well able to express to you.'
Cedric looked startled. 'Nothing to be distressed about on my account, ma'am, nothing in the world! Must beg your ladyship to excuse my appearance! The fact is, these early hours, you know, put a man out!'
'Lady Luttrell refers, I apprehend, to Beverley's death,' said Sir Richard dryly.
'Bev? Oh, of course, yes! Shocking affair! Never was more surprised in my life!'
'It is a source of profound dismay to me that such a thing should have happened while your brother was a guest in my house,' said Lady Luttrell.
'Don't give it a thought, ma'am!' begged Cedric. 'Not your fault—always thought he would come to a bad end—might have happened anywhere!'
'Your callousness, sir, is disgusting!' proclaimed the Major, picking up his hat. 'I will not remain another instant to be revolted by such a display of heartless unconcern!'
'Well, damme, who wants you to?' demanded Cedric. 'Haven't I been trying to get you to go away this past half-hour? Never met such a thick-skinned fellow in my life!'
'Escort Major Daubenay to the door, Ceddie,' Sir Richard said. 'I understand that Lady Luttrell wishes to see me upon a private matter.'
'Private as you please, dear boy! Ma'am, your very obedient! After you, Major!' He bowed the Major out with a flourish, winked at Sir Richard, and went out himself.
'What an engaging scapegrace!' remarked Lady Luttrell, moving forward into the middle of the parlour. 'I confess, I much disliked his brother.'
'Your dislike was shared by most of his acquaintance, ma'am. Will you not be seated?'
She took the chair he offered, and looked him over rather penetratingly. 'Well, Sir Richard,' she said, perfectly mistress of the situation, 'you are wondering, I dare say, why I have come to call upon you.'
'I think I know,' he replied.
'Then I need not beat about the bush. You are travelling with a young gentleman who is said to be your cousin, I understand. A young gentleman who, if my maid is to be believed, answers to the somewhat unusual name of Pen.'
'Yes,' said Sir Richard. 'We should have changed that.'
'Pen Creed, Sir Richard?'
'Yes, ma'am! Pen Creed.'
Her gaze did not waver from his impassive countenance. 'A trifle odd, sir, is it not?'
'The word, ma'am, should have been fantastic. May I know how you came by your information?'
'Certainly you may. I have lately supported a visit from Mrs Griffin and her son, who seemed to expect to find Pen with me. They told me that she had left their roof in her cousin's second-best suit of clothes, by way of the window. That sounded very like Pen Creed to me. But she was not with me, Sir Richard. It was not until this morning that my maid told me of a golden-haired boy who was putting up with his cousin—yourself, Sir Richard—at this inn. That is why I came. I am sure that you will appreciate that I felt a certain degree of anxiety.'
'Perfectly,' he said. 'But Pen is no longer with me. She left for Bristol this morning, and is now, I must suppose, a passenger on the London stagecoach.'
She raised her brows. 'Still more surprising! I hope that you mean to satisfy my curiosity, sir?'
'Obviously I must do so,' he said, and in a cool, expressionless voice, recounted to her all that had happened since Pen had dropped from her rope of sheets into his arms.
She heard him in attentive silence, and all the time watched him. When he had done, she did not say anything for a moment, but looked thoughtfully at him. After a pause, she said: 'Was Pen very much distressed to find my son head over ears in love with Lydia Daubenay?'
'I did not think so.'
'Oh! And my son, I think you said, showed himself to be shocked at die seeming impropriety of her situation?'
'Not unnaturally, though I could have wished that he had not shown his disapproval quite so plainly. She is very young, you see. It had not occurred to her that there was anything amiss.'
'Piers had never the least tact,' she said. 'I expect he told her that you were in honour bound to marry her.'
'He did, and he spoke no less than the truth.'
'Forgive me, Sir Richard, but did you offer for Pen because you felt your honour to be involved?'
'No, I asked her to marry me because I loved her, ma'am.'
'Did you tell her so, Sir Richard?'
'Yes. But she did not believe me.'
'Perhaps,' suggested Lady Luttrell, 'you had not previously given her reason to suppose that you had fallen in love with her?'
'Madam,' said Sir Richard, with a touch of impatience, 'she was in my care, in a situation of the utmost delicacy! Would you have expected me to abuse her confidence by making love to her?'
'No,' she said, smiling. 'From the little I have seen of you, I should have expected you to have treated her just as I imagine you did: as though you were indeed her uncle.'
'With the result,' he said bitterly, 'that that is how she regards me.'
'Is it indeed?' she said tartly. 'Let me tell you, Sir Richard, that men of twenty-nine, with your air, countenance, and address, are not commonly regarded by young females in the light of uncles!'
He flushed, and smiled a little wryly. 'Thank you! But Pen is not like other young females.'
'Pen,' said Lady Luttrell, 'must be a very odd sort of a female if she spent all this while in your company and not succumbed to a charm of manner which you must be so well aware that you possess that I do not scruple to mention it. I consider that your conduct in aiding the chit to escape was disgraceful, but since you were drunk at the time I suppose one must overlook that. I do not blame you for anything you have done since you found yourself in the stagecoach: indeed, you have behaved in a manner that would, if I were twenty-years younger, make me envy Pen exceedingly. Finally, if she did not spend the better part of last night crying her eyes out, I know nothing about my own sex! Where is the letter she left for you? May I see it?'
He drew it from his pocket. 'Pray read it, if you wish. It contains nothing, alas, that may not be read by other eyes than mine.'
She took it from him, read it, and handed it back. 'Just as I thought! Breaking her heart, and determined you shall not know it! Sir Richard, for a man of experience, which I judge you to be, you are a great fool! You never kissed her!'
An unwilling laugh was dragged out of him at this unexpected accusation. 'How could I, situated as we were? She recoiled from the very thought of marriage!'
'Because she thought you had asked her to marry you out of pity! Of course she recoiled!'
'Lady Luttrell, are you serious? Do you indeed think—'
'Think! I know!' said her ladyship. 'Your scruples were very fine, I make no doubt, but how should a chit of Pen's age understand what you were about? She would not care a fig for your precious honour, and I dare say—indeed, I am sure!—that she thought your forbearance mere indifference. And the long and the short of it is that she has gone back to her aunt, and will very likely be bullied into marrying her cousin!'
'Oh no, she will not!' said Sir Richard, with a glance at the clock on the mantelshelf. 'I am desolated to be obliged to leave you, ma'am, but if I am to overtake that stagecoach this side of Chippenham, I must go.'
'Excellent!' she said, laughing. 'Do not waste a thought on me! But having caught the stage, what do you propose to do with Pen?'
'Marry her, ma'am! What else?'
'Dear me, I hope you do not mean to join my foolish son at Gretna Green! I think you had better bring Pen to Crome Hall.'
'Thank you, I will!' he said, with the smile which she privately thought irresistible. 'I am very much in your debt, ma'am.'
He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it, and left the room, calling for Cedric.
Cedric, who had been partaking of breakfast in the coffee-room, lounged out into the entrance-parlour. 'The devil take you, Ricky, you're as restless as that plaguey friend of yours! What's the matter now?'
'Ceddie, were you driving your own horses yesterday?'
'Dear old boy, of course I was, but what has that to say to anything?'
'I want 'em,' said Sir Richard.
'But, Ricky, I've got to go back to Bath to get hold of that necklace before it's discovered to be made of paste!'
'Take the landlord's gig. I must have a fast pair immediately.'
'The landlord's gig!' gasped Cedric, reeling under the shock. 'Ricky, you must be mad!'
'I am not in the least mad. I am going after the London stage, to recover that brat of mine. Be a good fellow, now, and tell them to harness the horses at once!'
'Oh, very well!' Cedric said. 'If that's the way it is! But I'll be satisfied with nothing less than a cavalry regiment, mind!'
'You shall have anything you like!' promised Sir Richard, already half-way up the stairs.
'Mad, quite mad!' said Cedric despairingly, and set up a shout for an ostler.
Ten minutes later, the bays were harnessed to the curricle, and Sir Richard had stepped out into the yard, pulling on his gloves. 'Famous!' he said. 'I hoped you were driving your bays.'
'If you lame 'em—'
'Ceddie, are you—is it possible that you are going to tell me how to drive?' asked Sir Richard.
Cedric, who was still clad in his exotic dressing-gown, leaned against the door-post, and grinned. 'You'll spring 'em. I know you!'
'If I lame them, I will make you a present of my own greys!' said Sir Richard, gathering up the reins.
'Part with your greys?' exclaimed Cedric. 'No, no, you'd never bring yourself to do that, Ricky!'
'Don't disturb yourself: I shan't have to.'
Cedric made a derisive sound, and lingered to watch him mount on to the box-seat. A commotion behind him distracted his attention, and he turned in time to see Mrs Hopkins enter the inn through the front-door, closely followed by a thickset man in a frieze coat, and a broad-brimmed hat. Mrs Hopkins was labouring under great agitation, and sank immediately into a chair, volubly explaining to the bewildered landlord that she had never had such a turn in her life, and did not expect to recover from her palpitations for a twelvemonth. Took up by a Bow Street Runner, Tom!' she panted. 'And him so innocent-seeming as never was!'
'Who?' demanded her spouse.
'That poor young gentleman which is Sir Richard's cousin! Under my very eyes, Tom, and me not dreaming of such a thing! And then if he didn't break away, the which I can't but be glad of, whatever any one may say, Mr Gudgeon not excepted, for a nicer-spoken young gentleman I never did see, and I'm a mother myself, and I have a heart, though others may not, naming no names, and meaning no offence!'
'My God, here's a pretty coil!' exclaimed Cedric, grasping with remarkable swiftness the gist of her remarks. 'Hi, Ricky, wait!'
The bays were dancing with impatience. 'Stand away from their heads!' commanded Sir Richard.
'And here's Mr Gudgeon himself, wishful to see Sir Richard and Mr Brandon very particular, which I was obliged to take him up in the trap, though little I want Bow Street Runners, or the like, in my house, as you well know, Tom!'
'Ricky!' shouted Cedric, striding out into the yard. 'Wait, man! That bloodhound of mine is here, and there's the devil to pay!'
'Fob him off, Ceddie, fob him off!' called Sir Richard over his shoulder, and swept out of the yard into the street.
'Ricky, you madman, hold a minute!' roared Cedric.
But the curricle had bowled out of sight The ostler enquired whether he should run after it.
'Run after my bays?' said Cedric scornfully. 'You'd need wings, not legs, to catch them, my good fool!'
He turned back to the inn, encountering in the doorway Lady Luttrell, who had come out to see what all the shouting was about.
'What is the matter, Mr Brandon?' she asked. 'You seem very much put out.'
'Matter, ma'am! Why, here's Richard gone off after the London Stage, and that crazy girl of his taken up by the Bow Street Runner in Bristol!'
'Good God, this is horrible!' she exclaimed. 'Sir Richard must be recalled at all costs! The child must be rescued!'
'Well, by all accounts she seems to have rescued herself,' said Cedric. 'But where she may be now, the Lord only knows! However, I'm glad that Runner has arrived: I was getting deuced tired of hunting for him.'
'But is it impossible to stop Sir Richard?' she asked urgently.
'Lord, ma'am, he's half-way to the London road by now!' said Cedric.
This pronouncement was not strictly accurate. Sir Richard, driving out of Queen Charlton at very much the same time as Miss Creed was boarding the Accommodation coach at Kingswood, chose to take the road to Bath rather than that which led to Keynsham, and thence, due north, through Oldland to join the Bristol road at Warmley. His experience of Accommodation coaches was not such as to induce him to place much confidence in their being likely to cover more than eight miles an hour, and he calculated that if the stage had left Bristol at nine o'clock, which seemed probable, it would not reach the junction of the Bath and Bristol roads until noon at the earliest. The Honourable Cedric's bays, drawing a light curricle, might be depended upon to arrive at Chippenham considerably in advance of that hour, and the Bath road had the advantage of being well known to Sir Richard.
The bays, which seemed to have been fed exclusively on oats, were in fine fettle, and the miles flashed by. They were not, perhaps, an easy pair to handle, but Sir Richard, a notable whip, had little trouble with them, and was so well satisfied with their pace and stamina that he began to toy seriously with the idea of making the Honourable Cedric a handsome offer for them. He was obliged to rein them in to a sedate pace whilst threading his way through the crowded streets of Bath, but once clear of the town he was able to give them their heads on the long stretch to Corsham, and arrived finally in Chippenham to learn that the Accommodation coach from Bristol was not due there for nearly another hour. Sir Richard repaired to the best posting-inn, superintended the disposal of the sweating bays, and ordered breakfast. When he had consumed a dish of ham-and-eggs, and drunk two cups of coffee, he had the bays put-to again, and drove westward along the Bristol road, at a leisurely pace, until he came to a fork, where a weather-beaten signpost pointed northward to Nettleton and Acton Turville, and westward to Wroxhall, Marshfield, and Bristol. Here he reined in, to await the approach of the stage.
It was not long in putting in an appearance. It rounded a bend in the deserted road ahead, a green-and-gold monstrosity, rocking and swaying top-heavily in the centre of the road, with half a dozen outside passengers on the roof, the boot piled high with baggage, and the guard sitting up behind with the yard of tin in his hand.
Sir Richard drew the curricle across the road, hitched up his reins, and jumped lightly down from the box-seat. The bays were quiet enough by this time, and except for some fidgeting, showed no immediate disposition to bolt.
Finding his way barred, the stage-coachman pulled up his team, and demanded aggrievedly what game Sir Richard thought he was playing.
'No game at all!' said Sir Richard. 'You have a fugitive aboard, and when I have taken him into custody, you are at liberty to proceed on your way.'
'Ho, I am, am I?' said the coachman, nonplussed, but by no means mollified. 'Fine doings on the King's Highway! Ah, and so you'll find afore you're much older!'
One of the inside passengers, a red-faced man with very bushy whiskers, poked his head out of the window to discover the reason for the unexpected halt; the guard climbed down from the roof to argue with Sir Richard; and Pen, squashed between a fat farmer, and a woman with a perpetual sniff, had a sudden fear that she had been overtaken by the Bow Street Runner. The sound of the guard's voice, saying: 'There, and if I didn't suspicion him from the werry moment I set eyes on him at Kingswood!' did nothing to allay her alarms. She turned a white, frightened face towards the door, just as it was pulled open, and the steps let down.
The next instant, Sir Richard's tall, immaculate person filled the opening, and Pen, uttering an involuntary sound between a squeak and a whimper, turned first red, and then white, and managed to utter the one word: 'No!'
'Ah!' said Sir Richard briskly. 'So there you are! Out you come, my young friend!'
'Well, I never did in all my life!' gasped the woman beside Pen. 'Whatever has he been and gone and done, sir?'
'Run away from school,' replied Sir Richard, without a moment's hesitation.
'I haven't! It isn't t-true!' stammered Pen. 'I won't go with you, I w-won't!'
Sir Richard, leaning into the coach, and grasping her hand, said: 'Oh, won't you, by Jove? Don't you dare to defy me, you—brat!'
'Here, guv'nor, steady!' expostulated a kindly man in the far corner. 'I don't know when I've taken more of a fancy to a lad, and there's no call for you to bully him, I'm sure! Dare say there's many of us have wanted to run away from school in our time, eh?'
'Ah,' said Sir Richard brazenly, 'but you do not know the half of it! You think he looks a young innocent, but I could tell you a tale of his depravity which would shock you.'
'Oh, how dare you?' said Pen indignantly. 'It isn't true! Indeed, it isn't!'
The occupants of the coach had by this time ranged themselves into two camps. Several persons said that they had suspected the young varmint of running away from the start, and Pen's supporters demanded to know who Sir Richard was, and what right he had to drag the poor young gentleman out of the coach.
'Every right!' responded Sir Richard. 'I am his guardian. In fact, he is my nephew.'
'I am not!' stated Pen.
His eyes looked down into hers, with so much laughter in them that she felt her heart turn over. 'Aren't you?' he said. 'Well, if you are not my nephew, brat, what are you?'
Aghast, she choked: 'Richard, you—you—traitor!'
Even the kindly man in the corner seemed to feel that Sir Richard's question called for an answer. Pen looked helplessly round, encountered nothing but glances either of disapproval, or of interrogation, and raised her wrathful eyes to Sir Richard's face.
'Well?" said Sir Richard inexorably. 'Are you my nephew?'
'Yes—no! Oh, you are abominable! You wouldn't dare!'
'Yes, I would,' said Sir Richard. 'Are you going to get out, or are you not?"
A man in a plum-coloured coat recommended Sir Richard to dust the young rascal's jacket for him. Pen stared up at Sir Richard, read the determination behind the amusement in his face, and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, and out of the stuffy coach.
'P'raps when you've quite finished, your honour, you'll be so werry obliging as to move that curricle of yourn!' said the coachman sardonically.
'Richard, I can't go back!' Pen said in a frantic undertone. 'That Runner caught me in Bristol, and I only just contrived to escape!'
'Ah, that must have been what Cedric was trying to tell me!' said Sir Richard, walking up to the bays, and backing them to the side of the road. 'So you were arrested, were you? What a splendid adventure for you, my little one!'
'And I have left your cloak-bag behind, and it's no use trying to drag me away with you, because I won't go! I won't, I won't!'
'Why won't you?' asked Sir Richard, turning to look down at her.
She found herself unable to speak. There was an expression in Sir Richard's eyes which brought the colour rushing into her cheeks again, and made her feel as though the world were whirling madly round her. Behind her, the guard, having let up the steps, and shut the door, climbed, grumbling, on to the roof again. The coach began to move ponderously forward. Pen paid no heed to it, though the wheels almost brushed her coat. 'Richard, you—you don't want me! You can't want me!' she said uncertainly.
'My darling!' he said. 'Oh, my precious, foolish little love!'
The coach lumbered on down the road; as it reached the next bend, the roof-passengers, looking back curiously to see the last of a very odd couple, experienced a shock that made one of them nearly lose his balance. The golden-haired stripling was locked in the Corinthian's arms, being ruthlessly kissed.
'Lawks a-mussy on us! whatever is the world a-coming to?' gasped the roof-passenger, recovering his seat. 'I never did in all my born days!'
'Richard, Richard, they can see us from the coach!' expostulated Pen, between tears and laughter.
'Let them see!' said the Corinthian. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 1 | There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.
I was glad of it. I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.
The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mamma in the drawing-room; she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group, saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation that I was endeavoring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy little children."
"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.
"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners: besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."
A small breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room: I slipped in there. It contained a book-case: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass protecting, but not separating, me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near, a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.
I returned to my book—Bewick's History of British Birds: the letter-press thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape—
Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.
Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigors of extreme cold." Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own—shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.
I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quiet, solitary church-yard, with its inscribed headstone, its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.
The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.
The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.
So was the black, horned thing, seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.
Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting; as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humor; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her night-cap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and older ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.
With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy; happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened.
"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.
"Where the dickens is she?" he continued. "Lizzy, Georgy!" (calling to his sisters), 'Joan is not here: tell mamma she is run out into the rain—bad animal!"
"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door and said at once—
"She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack."
And I came out immediately; for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.
"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.
"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?' " was the answer. "I want you to come here;" and, seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.
John Reed was a school-boy of fourteen years old—four years older than I, for I was but ten—large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mamma had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of his delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweet-meats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to overapplication, and, perhaps, to pining after home.
John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me—not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually : every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrunk when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions: the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence—more frequently, however, behind her back.
Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. He spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots. I knew he would soon strike, and, while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonderif he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and, on regaining my equilibrium, retired back a step or two from his chair.
"That is for your impudence in answering mamma a while since," said he, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"
Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.
"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.
"I was reading."
"Show the book."
I returned to the window and fetched it thence.
"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mamma 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 mamma'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 mamma? 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 some pungent suffering: these sensations, for the time, predominated 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 up stairs; she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and the 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 up stairs. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | 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' son! your young master!"
"Master! How is he my master? Am I a ervant?"
"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 pairs 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 guaranty 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.
"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 poor-house."
I had nothing to say to these words; they were not new to me; my very first recollection 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 bedroom was a spare 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 a soft fawn-color, 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.
This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchens; 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 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 up 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 vigor; 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 brow-beaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one's favor? 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 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 disregardedher 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 further irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.
"Unjust! unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonizing 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 sympathize with one among 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 scape-goat 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 stair-case window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall. I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sunk. 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 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—had 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 toward the dimly-gleaming 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 realized. With all my might I endeavored to stifle it—I endeavored 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.
"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 wicked, 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."
"Oh 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 almost 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 further parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit; unconsciousness closed the scene. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 3 | The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick, black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water; agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror, confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up, and supporting me in a sitting posture; and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.
In five minutes more, the cloud of bewilderment dissolved. I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night; a candle burned on the table. Bessie stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.
I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room; an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie, (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinized the face of the gentleman; I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing; for herself and the children she employed a physician. "Well, who am I?" he asked.
I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand. He took it, smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by and by." Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he departed, to my grief; I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again sunk; inexpressible sadness weighed it down.
"Do you feel as if you should sleep, miss?" asked Bessie, rather softly.
Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be rough. "I will try."
"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"
"No, thank you, Bessie."
"Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock; but you may call me if you want anything in the night."
Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.
"Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?"
"You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room, with crying; you'll be better soon, no doubt."
Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near. I heard her say:
"Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child tonight; she might die; it's such a strange thing she should have that fit; I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard."
Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for half an hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the main subject discussed.
"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished"—"A great black dog behind him"—"Three loud raps on the chamber door"—"A light in the church-yard just over his grave"—&c., &c.
At last both slept; the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye, and mind were alike strained by dread; such dread as children only can feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room: it only gave my nerves a shock, of which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering. But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.
Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down; but my worst ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there; they were all gone out in the carriage with their mamma. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.
Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly-painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favor; coming, like most other favors, long deferred and often wished for, too late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded. I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight; I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales; for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among fox-glove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth that they were all gone out of England to some savage country, where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant: whereas Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds, of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and, having washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was,—
"In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago."
I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice—at least, I thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; "A long time ago" came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one:
"My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.
Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and gray rocks are piled?
Men are hardhearted, and kind angels only
Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.
Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild;
God, in his mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.
Even should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to his bosom the poor orphan child.
There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child."
"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie, as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, "Don't burn!" But how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.
"What, already up!" said he, as he entered the nursery. "Well, nurse, how is she?"
Bessie answered that I was doing very well.
"Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane; your name is Jane, is it not?"
"Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."
"Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?"
"No, sir."
"Oh! I dare say she is crying because she could not go out with missis in the carriage," interposed Bessie.
"Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness."
I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable."
"Oh, fie, miss!" said Bessie.
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and gray; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered me at leisure, he said—
"What made you ill yesterday?"
"She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.
"Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old."
"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride: "but that did not make me ill," I added, while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.
As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rung for the servant's dinner; he knew what it was. "That's for you, nurse," said he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."
Bessie would rather have stayed; but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.
"The fall did not make you ill? what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd, when Bessie was gone.
"I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost, till after dark."
I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. "Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?"
"Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can help it: and it was cruel to shut me up alone, without a candle—so cruel that I think I shall never forget it."
"Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now, in daylight?"
"No; but night will come again before long; and, besides, I am unhappy, very unhappy, for other things."
"What other things? Can you tell me some of them?"
How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyze their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response.
"For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters."
"You have a kind aunt and cousins."
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced:
"But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room."
Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.
"Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?" asked he. "Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?"
"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant."
"Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"
"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman."
"Perhaps you may—who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"
"I think not, sir."
"None belonging to your father?"
"I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre; but she knew nothing about them."
"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"
I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices; poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.
"No; I should not like to belong to poor people," was my reply.
"Not even if they were kind to you?"
I shook my head. I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead; no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.
"But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?"
"I cannot tell. Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set; I should not like to go a-begging."
"Would you like to go to school?"
Again I reflected. I scarcely knew what school was. Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore back-boards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise; John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing, and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change; it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.
"I should, indeed, like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my musings.
"Well, well; who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. "The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added, speaking to himself; "nerves not in a good state."
Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel-walk.
"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd: "I should like to speak to her before I go."
Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for, as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie, when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand." Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.
On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent; that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.
Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot."
"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that."
"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie; "at any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition."
"Yes, I dote on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot. "Little darling! with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet color as she has; just as if she were painted! Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper."
"So could I—with a roast onion. Come, we'll go down." They went. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 4 | From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above-reported conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near—I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however; days and weeks passed; I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me. Since my illness she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school; still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion.
Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible. John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran from me uttering execrations and vowing I had burst his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantageto purpose; but he was already with his mamma. I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how "that nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him like a mad cat—: he was stopped rather harshly—
"Don't talk to me about her, John; I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her."
Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly and without at all deliberating on my words, "They are not fit to associate with me."
Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman, but, on hearing this strange and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.
"What would Uncle Reed say to you if he were alive?" was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance; something spoke out of me over which I had no control.
"What?" said Mrs. Reed, under her breath. Her usually cold, composed gray eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my arm and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it.
"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mamma; they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead."
Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly; she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings surging in my breast.
November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gayety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringleted; and afterward, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footmen, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room doors opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stair-head to the solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally bearing the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee, till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sunk to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To this crib I always took my doll. Human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scare-crow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doted on this wooden toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it happy likewise.
Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs. Sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper—a bun or a cheese-cake; then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished she would tuck the clothes round me; and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good night, Miss Jane." When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity; for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative: so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty, too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.
It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mamma; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond; and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked propensity for saving, shown not only in the vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell; and Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper; but, some of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of interest—fifty or sixty per cent—which interest she exacted every quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy.
Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before she returned, (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under nursery maid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll's house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.
From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with indifference: carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rung loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirped on the twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running up stairs into the nursery.
"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore: what are you doing there? Have you washed your hands and face this morning?" I gave another tug before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the cherry-tree bough; then, closing the window, I replied:
"No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting."
"Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look quite red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you opening the window for?"
I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, inflicted a merciless, but, happily, brief scrub on my face and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.
I would have asked who wanted me; I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery door upon me; I slowly descended. For nearly three months I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence: restricted so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.
I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery; I feared to go forward to the parlor; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I must enter.
"Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. "What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment—a man, or a woman?" The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and courtesying low, I looked up at—a black pillar!—such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug; the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.
Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger with these words: "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you."
He, for it was a man, turned his head slowly toward where I stood, and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking gray eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said, solemnly, and in a bass voice: "Her size is small; what is her age?"
"Ten years."
"So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny some minutes. Presently he addressed me.
"Your name, little girl?"
"Jane Eyre, sir."
In uttering these words I looked up; he seemed to me a tall gentleman; but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.
"Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?"
Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative—my little world held a contrary opinion—I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst."
"Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;" and, bending from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair, opposite Mrs. Reed's. "Come here," he said.
I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large, prominent teeth!
"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.
"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there forever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment. My answer, when it did come, was objectionable. "I must keep in good health, and not die."
"How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of five years old, only a day or two since—a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same could not be said of you, were you to be called hence."
Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself far enough away.
"I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress."
"Benefactress! benefactress!" said I, inwardly. "They all call Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing."
"Do you say your prayers night and morning?" continued my interrogator.
"Yes, sir."
"Do you read your Bible?"
"Sometimes."
"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"
"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis, and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah."
"And the Psalms? I hope you like them."
"No, sir."
"No! oh, shocking! I have a little boy younger than you, who knows six psalms by heart; and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat, or a verse of a psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh, the verse of a psalm! Angels sing psalms,' says he; 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."
"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.
"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change it—to give you a new and a clean one—to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the conversation herself.
"Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated, in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish. Should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault—a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst."
Well might I dread—well might I dislike Mrs. Reed, for it was her nature to wound me cruelly. Never was I happy in her presence. However carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart. I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path. I saw myself transformed, under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye, into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?
"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish.
"Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst; "it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone. She shall, however, be watched, Mrs. Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."
"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects," continued my benefactress; "to be made useful, to be kept humble. As for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood."
"Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr. Brocklehurst. "Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood. I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation among them. I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride, and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mamma to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look! with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little Holland pockets outside their frocks—they are almost all like poor people's children!' and, said she, 'they looked at my dress and mamma's as if they had never seen a silk gown before.'"
"This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed. "Had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things."
"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants."
"Quite right, sir. I may, then, depend upon this child being received as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her position and prospects?"
"Madam, you may; she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants; and I trust she will show herself grateful to the inestimable privilege of her election."
"I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was becoming too irksome."
"No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two; my good friend, the archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-by."
"Good-by, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst, and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Brough ton Brocklehurst."
"I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the Child's Guide: read it, with prayer, especially that part containing an 'account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G—, a naughty child, addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"
With these words, Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn in a cover; and having rung for his carriage, he departed.
Mrs. Reed and I were left alone; some minutes passed in silence; she was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be, at that time, some six or seven-and-thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese. She had a somewhat large face, the under-jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of truth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell; illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only, at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire.
Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract, containing the sudden death of the liar; to which narrative my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed—what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst—the whole tenor of their conversation was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly; and a passion of resentment fermented now within me.
Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.
"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme, though suppressed, irritation. I got up, I went to the door, I came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, and then close up to her.
Speak I must; I had been trodden on severely, and must turn; but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence:
"I am not deceitful; if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you; I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give it to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."
Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive; her eye of ice continued to dwell freezing on mine:
"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child.
That eye of hers, that voice, stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued:
"I am glad you are no relation of mine; I will never call you aunt again as long as I live; I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."
"How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"
"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can live without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so; and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back into the red-room, and locked me up there—to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman; but you are bad-hard-hearted. You are deceitful!"
Ere I had finished this reply my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment; Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry.
"Jane, you are under a mistake; what is the matter with you? Why do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?"
"No, Mrs. Reed."
"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure I desire to be your friend."
"Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done."
"Jane, you don't understand these things; children must be corrected for their faults."
"Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.
"But you are passionate, Jane; that you must allow; and now return to the nursery, there's a dear, and lie down a little."
"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down; send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."
"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed, sotto voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.
I was left there alone, winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained. I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterward the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed; the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as metely my subsequent condition, when half an hour's silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed on swallowing, warm and racy; its after-flavor, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby reëxciting every turbulent impulse of my nature.
I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find some nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. I took a book, some Arabian tales; I sat down and endeavored to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had always found fascinating. I opened a glass door in the breakfast-room; the shrubbery was quite still; the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestered; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the fallen fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field, where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very gray day; a most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes fell at intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and over again, "What shall I do? what shall I do?"
All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane! where are you? Come to lunch!"
It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir: her light step came tripping down the path.
"You naughty little thing!" she said. "Why don't you come when you are called?"
Bessie's presence now, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross. The fact is, after my conflict with, and victory over, Mrs. Reed, I was not disposed to care much for the nurse-maid's transitory anger; and I was disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just put my two arms round her, and said, "Come, Bessie! don't scold."
The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to indulge in; somehow it pleased her.
"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said, as she looked down at me; "a little, roving, solitary thing; and you are going to school, I suppose?"
I nodded.
"And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?"
"What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me."
"Because you're such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder."
"What! to get more knocks?"
"Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that's certain. My mother said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one of her own to be in your place. Now come in, and I've some good news for you."
"I don't think you have, Bessie."
"Child! What do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well! but missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll ask the cook to bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with you."
"Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go."
"Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it's so provoking."
"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I've got used to you; and I shall soon have another set of people to dread."
"If you dread them they'll dislike you."
"As you do, Bessie?"
"I don't dislike you, miss; I believe I am fonder of you than all the others."
"You don't show it."
"You little sharp thing! you've got quite a new way of talking. What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"
"Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides—." I was going to say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed; but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head.
"And so you are glad to leave me?"
"Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I am rather sorry."
"Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say now, if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn't give it me; you'd say you would rather not."
"I'll kiss you and welcome; bend your head down." Bessie stooped; we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite comforted. That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchaining stories, and sung me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 5 | Five o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and nearly dressed. I had risen half an hour before her entrance, and had washed my face and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just setting, whose ray streamed through the narrow window of my little crib. I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates at six A.M. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lighted a fire in the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie, having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet, and, wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery. As we passed Mrs. Reed's bedroom, she said, "Will you go in and bid missis good-by?"
"No, Bessie; she came to my crib last night, when you were gone down to supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my cousins either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accordingly."
"What did you say, miss?"
"Nothing; I covered my face with the bed-clothes, and turned from her to the wall."
"That was wrong, Miss Jane."
"It was quite right, Bessie; your missis has not been my friend; she has been my foe."
"Oh, Miss Jane! don't say so!"
"Good-by to Gateshead!" cried I, as we passed through the hall and went out at the front door.
The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw and chill was the winter morning; my teeth chattered as I hastened down the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge; when we reached it we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.
"Is she going by herself?" asked the porter's wife.
"Yes."
"And how far is it?"
"Fifty miles."
"What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far alone."
The coach drew up; there it was at the gates, with its four horses and its top laden with passengers. The guard and coachman loudly urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's neck, to which I clung with kisses.
"Be sure and take good care of her," cried she to the guard, as he lifted me into the inside.
"Ay, ay!" was the answer: the door was clapped to, a voice exclaimed "All right," and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote and mysterious regions.
I remember but little of the journey. I only know that the day seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one—a very large one—the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments. Here I walked about a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the "stony street" of L—.
The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty; as it waned into dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead. We ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great gray hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing among trees.
Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep. I had not long slumbered when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was thrown open, and a person like a servant was standing at it; I saw her face and dress by the light of the lamps.
"Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?" she asked. I answered, "Yes," and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach instantly drove away.
I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion of the coach: gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall before me, and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide; she shut and locked it behind her. There was now visible a house or houses—for the building spread far—with many windows, and lights burning in some; we went up a broad, pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into a room with a fire, where she left me alone.
I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth showed by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany furniture; it was a parlor, not so spacious or splendid as the drawing-room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close behind.
The first was a tall lady, with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her countenance was grave, her bearing erect.
"The child is very young to be sent alone," said she, putting her candle down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute or two, then further added:
"She had better be put to bed soon—she looks tired. Are you tired?" she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.
"A little, ma'am."
"And hungry, too, no doubt; let her have some supper before she goes to bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents to come to school, my little girl?"
I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they had been dead; then, how old I was, what was my name, whether I could read, write, and sew a little; then she touched my cheek gently with her fore-finger, and saying, "She hoped I should be a good child," dismissed me along with Miss Miller.
The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with me appeared some years younger; the first impressed me by her voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand; she looked, indeed, what I afterward found she really was, an under-teacher. Led by her, I passed from compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a large and irregular building; till, emerging from the total and somewhat dreary silence pervading that portion of the house we had traversed, we came upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a wide, long room, with great deal tables, two at each end, on each of which burned a pair of candles, and, seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of every age from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long Holland pinafores. It was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their to-morrow's task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions.
Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking up to the top of the long room, she cried out:
"Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!"
Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command:
"Monitors, fetch the supper trays!"
The tall girls went out, and returned presently, each bearing a tray, with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug being common to all. When it came to my turn, I drank, for I was thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering me incapable of eating; I now saw, however, that it was a thin oaten cake, shared into fragments.
The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed off, two and two, up stairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bed room was, except that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. Tonight I was to be Miss Miller's bed-fellow; she helped me to undress. When laid down, I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished; amid silence and complete darkness, I fell asleep.
The night passed rapidly; I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke, to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing, the girls were up and dressing, day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room. I, too, rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed, when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell rung; all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly-lighted schoolroom; here prayers were read by Miss Miller; afterward she called out:
"Form classes!"
A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller repeatedly exclaimed, "Silence!" and "Order!" When it subsided, I saw them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like the Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound.
A distant bell tinkled. Immediately three ladies entered the room; each walked to a table and took her seat; Miss Miller assuming the fourth vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the smallest of the children were assembled; to this inferior class I was called, and placed at the bottom of it.
Business now began. The day's collect was repeated, then certain texts of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise was terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time; the classes were marshalled, and marched into another room to breakfast. How glad I was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having taken so little the day before.
The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent forth an odor far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those destined to swallow it. From the van of the procession, the tall girls of the first class, rose the whispered words:
"Disgusting! the porridge is burned again!"
"Silence!" ejaculated a voice—not that of Miss Miller, but of one of the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her I had first seen the night before—she was not visible. Miss Miller occupied the foot of the table, where I sat, and a strange, foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterward found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace was said, and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began.
Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess. Burned porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons were moved slowly. I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it, but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out; and, in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and taste it. She looked at the others; all their countenances expressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered:
"Abominable stuff! How shameful!"
A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again begun, during which the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult. For that space of time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the sole consolation they had. Miss Miller was not the only teacher in the room; a group of great girls standing about her, spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort to check the general wrath; doubtless she shared in it.
A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and, standing in the middle of the room, cried:
"Silence! To your seats!"
Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamor of tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts; but still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of Holland (shaped something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front of their frocks and destined to serve the purpose of a work-bag; all, too, wearing woollen stockings, and country-made shoes fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather, young women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest.
I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the teachers—none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, weather-beaten, and overworked—when, as my eye wandered from face to face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common spring.
What was the matter? I had heard no order given; I was puzzled. Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated; but as all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at each end: she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and, having received her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud, "Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!"
While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes tracked her steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes, with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine penciling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple—Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church.
The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson in geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers; repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve. The superintendent rose:
"I have a word to address to the pupils," said she.
The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sunk at her voice. She went on:
"You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be hungry; I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served to all."
The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise.
"It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory tone to them, and immediately afterward left the room.
The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was now given, "To the garden!" Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of colored calico, and a cloak of gray frieze. I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air.
The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect. A covered verandah ran down on one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space, divided into scores of little beds. These beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers, they would, doubtless, look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked around me. It was an inclement day for out-door exercise—not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling, yellow fog. All underfoot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games; but sundry pale and thin ones herded together, for shelter and warmth, in the verandah; and among these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.
As yet, I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me. I stood lonely enough; but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leaned against a pillar of the verandah, drew my gray mantle close about me, and trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record; I hardly yet knew where I was. Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture. I looked around the convent-like garden, and then, up at the house—a large building, half of which seemed gray and old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lighted by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:
"Lowood Institution. This portion was rebuilt A.D, by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county. 'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.'—St. Matt. v. 16."
I read these words over and over again. I felt that an explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and endeavoring to make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough, close behind me, made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent. From where I stood I could see the title—it was Rasselas, a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly, "Is your book interesting?" I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day.
"I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which she examined me:
"What is it about?" I continued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits; but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I, too, liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.
"You may look at it," replied the girl, offering me the book.
I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title. Rasselas looked dull to my trifling taste. I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed spread over the closely printed pages. I returned it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything, she was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her—"Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? What is Lowood Institution?"
"This house where you are come to live."
"And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from other schools?"
"It is partly a charity-school. You and I, and all the rest of us, are charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan. Are not either your father or your mother dead?"
"Both died before I can remember."
"Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an Institution for educating orphans."
"Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?"
"We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each."
"Then why do they call us charity-children?"
"Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the deficiency is supplied by subscription."
"Who subscribes?"
"Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighborhood and in London."
"Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?"
"The lady who built the new part of this house, as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."
"Why?"
"Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment."
"Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?"
"To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did. She has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and all our clothes."
"Does he live here?"
"No—two miles off, at a large hall."
"Is he a good man?"
"He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good."
"Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?"
"Yes."
"And what are the other teachers called?"
"The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts out—for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything: the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions: and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribbon, is Madame Pierrot; she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French."
"Do you like the teachers?"
"Well enough."
"Do you like the little black one, and the Madame?—I cannot pronounce her name as you do."
"Miss Scatcherd is hasty—you must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."
"But Miss Temple is the best—isn't she?"
"Miss Temple is very good, and very clever; she is above the rest, because she knows far more than they do."
"Have you been long here?"
"Two years."
"Are you an orphan?"
"My mother is dead."
"Are you happy here?"
"You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for the present; now I want to read."
But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner: all reentered the house. The odor which now filled the refectory was scarcely more appetizing than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast; the dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every day's fare would be like this.
After dinner we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.
The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace, by Miss Scatcherd, from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl—she looked thirteen or upward. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but, to my surprise, she neither wept nor blushed. Composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. "How can she bear it so quietly—so firmly?" I asked of myself. "Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her situation; of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of daydreams-is she in a daydream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it—her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart. She is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is—whether good or naughty."
Soon after five P.M., we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of coffee and half a slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more—I was still hungry. Half an hour's recreation succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such was my first day at Lowood. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 6 | The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight: but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of washing: the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice.
Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible reading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burned; the quality was eatable, the quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been double.
In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me. Hitherto I had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood—I was now to become an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad, when, about three o'clock in the afternoon Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin, two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the same. At that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd's chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English history. Among the readers, I observed my acquaintance of the verandah; at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation or some inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant notice; she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the following:—
"Burns" (such it seems was her name; the girls here were all called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), "Burns, you are standing on the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately." "Burns, you poke your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in." "Burns, I insist on your holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude," &c., &c.
A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles I, and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage, and ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns; her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead of that, she suddenly cried out:
"You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails this morning!"
Burns made no answer; I wondered at her silence.
"Why," thought I, "does she not explain that she could neither clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?"
My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein of thread. While she was winding it, she talked to me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements. When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order, of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and, going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful courtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression.
"Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd, "nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits; carry the rod away."
Burns obeyed. I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.
The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood; the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at five o'clock, had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger; the long restraint of the day was slackened; the school room felt warmer than in the morning; its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced; the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices, gave one a welcome sense of liberty.
On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups, without a companion, yet not feeling lonely; when I passed the windows I now and then lifted a blind and looked out; it snowed fast; a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish, from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.
Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace; as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and, reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamor.
Jumping over forms and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fireplaces; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.
"Is it still Rasselas?" I asked, coming behind her.
"Yes," she said, "and I have just finished it."
And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this.
"Now," thought I, "I can perhaps get her to talk." I sat down by her on the floor.
"What is your name besides Burns?"
"Helen."
"Do you come a long way from here?"
"I come from a place further north—quite on the borders of Scotland."
"Will you ever go back?"
"I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future."
"You must wish to leave Lowood?"
"No; why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object."
"But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?"
"Cruel? Not at all! She is severe; she dislike my faults."
"And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose."
"Probably you would do nothing of the sort; but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you—and, besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil."
"But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl; I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it."
"Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it. It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear."
I heard her with wonder. I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathize with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply: like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
"You say you have faults, Helen; what are they? To me you seem very good."
"Then learn from me not to judge by appearances. I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular."
"And cross and cruel," I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my addition; she kept silence.
"Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?"
At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face.
"Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, even the worst in the school; she sees my errors, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight."
"That is curious," said I; "it is so easy to be careful."
"For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning, and saw you were closely attentive; your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove away: when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house; then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be wakened; and, having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready."
"Yet how well you replied this afternoon!"
"It was mere chance: the subject on which we had been reading had interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no further than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst; they shed blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!"
Helen was talking to herself now; she had forgotten I could not very well understand her—that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level.
"And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?"
"No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain."
"Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"
"Yes, in a passive way; I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness."
"A great deal; you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."
"You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older; as yet you are but a little untaught girl."
"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."
"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilized nations disown it."
"How? I don't understand."
"It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."
"What then?"
"Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how he acts—make his word your rule, and his conduct your example."
"What does he say?"
"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."
"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son John, which is impossible."
In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain; and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening. Helen heard me patiently to the end. I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing.
"Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hardhearted, bad woman?"
"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because, you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine. But how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world; but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return—perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that; I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling; for it extends hope to all; it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low. I live in calm, looking to the end."
Helen's head, always drooping, sunk a little lower as she finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time for meditation; a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming, in a strong Cumber-land accent:
"Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!"
Helen sighed as her revery fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply as without delay. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 7 | My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age, either: it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.
During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold. We had no boots; the snow got into our shoes and melted there; our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet; I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause, every evening when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing. With the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse which pressed hardly on the younger pupils; whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge church, where our patron officiated; we set out cold, we arrived at church colder; during the morning service we became almost paralyzed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served around between the services.
At the close of the afternoon service, we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.
I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, "like stalwart soldiers." The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others.
How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied; each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.
A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread, a whole instead of a half slice, with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter; it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself, but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.
The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half dozen of little girls; who, overpowered by sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sunk together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors' high stools.
I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and, indeed, that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my arrival—perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon; his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming; but come he did at last.
One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing; I recognized, almost instinctively, that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearth-rug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right; it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.
I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprize Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise; I had been looking out daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child forever; now there he was. He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear; I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villany, and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened, too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said; its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.
"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning-needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil; if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, oh, ma'am! I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to! When I was here last I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair; from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time."
He paused.
"Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple.
"And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week; it is too much; the rules limit them to one."
"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Ca tharine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion."
Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.
"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I look over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by what authority?"
"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss Temple; "the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner time."
"Madam, allow me an instant! You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or over-dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralized by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and subverting the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under the temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs, to the exhortations of our blessed Lord himself, calling upon his disciples to take up their cross and follow him; to his warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to his divine consolations, 'If ye suffer hunger or thirst for my sake, happy are ye.' Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burned porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!"
Mr. Brocklehurst again paused—perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her, but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material, especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.
Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said, in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used, "Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—what is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled—curled all over?" And extending his cane, he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.
"Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly—here, in an evangelical charitable establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?"
"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.
"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of grace; and why that abundance? I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow; and I see others who have far too much of the excrescence; that tall girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall."
Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they obeyed. Leaning back on my bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre; it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would, perhaps, have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined.
He scrutinized the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom:
"All those top-knots must be cut off."
Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.
"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world; my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety—not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of—"
Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner, to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had gray beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich-plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled. The elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.
These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honor at the top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the rooms up stairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioning the laundress, and lecturing the superintendent. They now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories; but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and enchained my attention.
Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my own personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude observation. To this end, I had set well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face. I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me. I knew that it was all over now; and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came.
A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst; and immediately after—"It is the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could draw breath, "I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her." Then aloud—how loud it seemed to me!—"Let the child who broke her slate come forward!"
Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralyzed. But the two great girls who sat on each side of me set me on my legs and pushed me toward the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel.
"Don't be afraid, Jane; I saw it was an accident: you shall not be punished."
The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.
"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.
"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one, from which a monitor had just risen. It was brought.
"Place the child upon it."
And I was placed there, by whom I don't know. I was in no condition to note particulars. I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose; that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses, and a cloud of silvery plumage, extended and waved below me.
Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.
"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"
Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.
"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that he has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case."
A pause—in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.
"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, "this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway; not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her; keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinize her actions, punish her body to save her soul; if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl—this child—the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut—this girl is—a liar!"
Now came a pause of ten minutes; during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brock lehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the younger ones whispered, "How shocking!"
Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.
"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity, the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity. She has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her."
With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room. Turning at the door, my judge said "Let her stand half an hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day."
There I was, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were, no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me; in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lighted up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken gray eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm "the untidy badge." Scarcely an hour ago I heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow, because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man—such spots are there on the disk of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 8 | Ere the half-hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend; it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sunk prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept; Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself, I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good and to do so much at Lowood; to make so many friends, to earn respect, and win affection. Already I had made visible progress; that very morning I had reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss Temple had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to let me learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement two months longer: and then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise more?
"Never," I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached; I started up—again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread.
"Come, eat something," she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise; I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I was the first who spoke.
"Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?"
"Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions?"
"But what have I to do with millions? The eighty I know despise me."
"Jane, you are mistaken; probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you; many, I am sure, pity you much."
"How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst said?"
"Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god; nor is he even a great and admired man; he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favorite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you: as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides, Jane—" She paused.
"Well, Helen!" said I, putting my hand into hers; she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on—
"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough; if others don't love me, I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest—"
"Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the Sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits; that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognize our innocence (if innocent we be, as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory?"
I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague concern for her.
Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus, when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which we at once recognized as Miss Temple.
"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too."
We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to tread some intricate passages, and mount a stair-case before we reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side.
"Is it all over?" she asked, looking down at my face. "Have you cried your grief away?"
"I am afraid I never shall do that."
"Why?"
"Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked."
"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy me."
"Shall I, Miss Temple?"
"You will," said she, passing her arm round me. "And now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?"
"Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her care."
"Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?"
"No, maam; she was sorry to have to do it; but my uncle, as I have often heard the servants say, got her to promise, before he died, that she would always keep me."
"Well, now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence. You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as you can. Say whatever your memory suggests as true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing."
I resolved in the depth of my heart that I would be most moderate—most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible; I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.
In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit; for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room; in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.
I had finished. Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she then said—
"I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now."
She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was contented to stand, for I derived a child's pleasure from the contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.
"How are you tonight, Helen? Have you coughed much to day?"
"Not quite so much, I think, ma'am."
"And the pain in the chest?"
"It is a little better."
Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she returned to her own seat; as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said, cheerfully:
"But you two are my visitors tonight; I must treat you as such." She rung her bell.
"Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have not yet had tea; bring the tray, and place cups for these two young ladies."
And the tray was soon brought. How pretty to my eyes did the china cups and bright tea-pot look, placed on the little round table near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry), discerned only a very small portion; Miss Temple discerned it too.
"Barbara," said she, "can you not bring a little more bread and butter? There is not enough for three."
Barbara went out; she returned soon:
"Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity."
Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper, a woman after Mr. Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts whale-bone and iron.
"Oh, very well!" returned Miss Temple; "we must make it do, Barbara, I suppose." And as the girl withdrew, she added, smilingly, "Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once."
Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea, with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, and unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.
"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," said she; "but as there is so little toast you must have it now," and she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.
We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied. Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.
Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager; something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of awe; such was my feeling now; but as to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.
The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or perhaps more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they kindled; first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of Miss Temple's—a beauty neither of fine color, nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence.
They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at; they spoke of books; how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors; but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her; and, taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bed-time; no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying as she drew us to her heart:
"God bless you, my children!"
Helen she held a little longer than me; she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.
On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd; she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns', and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow she should have half a dozen of untidy folded articles pinned to her shoulder.
"My things were, indeed, in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me, in a low voice; "I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot."
Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word "Slattern," and bound it like a phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire; the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation. The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.
Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty; I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses of the verb Etre, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, by-the-by, outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination, the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted, instead, on the spectacle of ideal drawings which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands; freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-likegroups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wrens' nests inclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story-book, which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.
Well has Solomon said, "Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."
I would not now have exchanged Lowood, with all its privations, for Gateshead and its daily luxuries. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 9 | But the privations, or, rather, the hardships, of Lowood, lessened. Spring drew on; she was, indeed, already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted; its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swelled to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gender breathings of April. The nights and mornings no longer, by their Canadian temperature, froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden. Sometimes, on a sunny day, it began even to be pleasant and genial; and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out among the leaves—snowdrops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
I discovered, too, that a great pleasure—an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded—lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our garden. This pleasure consisted in a prospect of noble summits girding a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow—when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down "ing" and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless; it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons.
April advanced to May. A bright, serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales, filled up its duration. And now vegetation matured with vigor; Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprung up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its hollows; and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants; I have seen their pale, gold gleam, in overshadowed spots, like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone; for this unwonted liberty and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to advert.
Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough; but whether healthy or not is another question.
That forest dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into a hospital.
Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection. Forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license, because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health; and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them. Miss Temple's whole attention was absorbed by the patients; she lived in the sick room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only to die; some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay.
While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells—the drug and the pastile striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality—that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out-of-doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers; hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, dahlias and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double-daisies; the sweet-briers gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.
But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the scene and season. They let us ramble in the wood, like gypsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked—went where we liked; we lived better, too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now; household matters were not scrutinized into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously.
My favorite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading through the water—a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just broad enough to accommodate comfortably me and another girl—at that time my chosen comrade—one Mary Ann Wilson, a shrewd, observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at my ease. Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear. With her my curiosity found gratification. To my faults, also, she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for narrative—I for analysis; she liked to inform—I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse.
And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance; she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far higher things.
True, reader, and I knew and felt this; and though I am a defective being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of Helen Burns, nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of attachment as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times, and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, which ill-humor never soured nor irritation ever troubled? But Helen was ill at present; for some weeks she had been removed from my sight to I knew not what room, up stairs. She was not, I was told, in the hospital portion of the house, with the fever patients; for her complaint was consumption, not typhus; and by consumption I, in my ignorance, understood something mild, which time and care would be sure to alleviate.
I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming down stairs, on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and then not distinctly, for she was much wrapped up, and sat at a distance under the verandah.
One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual separated ourselves from the others, and had wandered far—so far that we lost our way, and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood. When we got back, it was after moonrise; a pony, which we knew to be the surgeon's, was standing at the garden-door. Mary Ann remarked that she supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at that time of the evening. She went into the house. I stayed behind a few minutes to plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in the forest, and which I feared would wither if I left them till morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer; the flowers smelled so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting these things, and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my mind, as it had never done before:
"How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying! This world is pleasant; it would be dreary to be called from it, and to have to go—who knows where?"
And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell, and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and, for the first time, glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf; it felt the one point where it stood—the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering and plunging amid that chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the front door open. Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a nurse. After she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the door, but I ran up to her.
"How is Helen Burns?"
"Very poorly," was the answer.
"Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?"
"Yes."
"And what does he say about her?"
"He says she'll not be here long."
This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but I knew instantly now; it opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire—a necessity—to see her; and I asked in what room she lay.
"She is in Miss Temple's room," said the nurse.
"May I go up and speak to her?"
"Oh, no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling."
The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance, which led to the schoolroom. I was just in time; it was nine o'clock, and Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed.
It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I—not having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapped in profound repose—rose softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple's room. It was quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odor of camphor and burned vinegar warned me when I came near the fever-room; and I passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse, who sat up all night, should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I must see Helen—I must embrace her before she died—I must give her one last kiss, exchange with her one last word.
Having descended a stair-case, traversed a portion of the house below, and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just opposite to me was Miss Temple's room. A light shone through the key-hole, and from under the door. A profound stillness pervaded the vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulses—soul and senses quivering with keen throes—I put it back and looked in. My eyes sought Helen, and feared to find death.
Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white curtains, there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings. The nurse I had spoken to in the garden sat in an easy-chair, asleep; an unsnuffed candle burned dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen; I knew afterward that she had been called to a delirious patient in the fever-room. I advanced; then paused by the crib-side. My hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the dread of seeing a corpse.
"Helen!" I whispered softly; "are you awake?"
She stirred, herself put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, wasted, but quite composed. She looked so little changed that my fear was instantly dissipated.
"Can it be you, Jane?" she asked, in her own gentle voice.
"Oh!" I thought, "she is not going to die; they are mistaken; she could not speak and look so calmly if she were."
I got on to her crib and kissed her. Her forehead was cold, and her cheek both cold and thin; and so were her hand and wrist; but she smiled as of old.
"Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o'clock; I heard it strike some minutes since."
"I came to see you, Helen; I heard you were very ill, and I could not sleep till I had spoken to you."
"You came to bid me good-by, then; you are just in time, probably."
"Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?"
"Yes; to my long home—my last home."
"No, no, Helen." I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she whispered—
"Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my quilt."
I did so; she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a long silence, she resumed; still whispering—
"I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead you must be sure and not grieve; there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual; my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much; I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world; I should have been continually at fault."
"But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?"
"I believe; I have faith; I am going to God."
"Where is God? What is God?"
"My Maker and yours; who will never destroy what he created. I rely implicitly on his power, and confide wholly in his goodness; I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to him, reveal him to me."
"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven; and that our souls can get to it when we die?"
"I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend; I love him; I believe he loves me."
"And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?"
"You will come to the same region of happiness; be received by the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane."
Again I questioned; but this time only in thought. "Where is that region? Does it exist?" And I clasped my arms closer round Helen; she seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the sweetest tone—
"How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; I feel as if I could sleep; but don't leave me, Jane; I like to have you near me."
"I'll stay with you, dear Helen; no one shall take me away."
"Are you warm, darling?"
"Yes."
"Good-night, Jane."
"Good-night, Helen."
She kissed me, and I her; and we both soon slumbered.
When I awoke it was day; an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving my bed; people had something else to think about. No explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterward I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns' shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was—dead.
Her grave is in Brocklebridge church-yard; for fifteen years after her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a gray marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word "Resurgam." |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 10 | Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant existence. To the first ten years of my life, I have given almost as many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography; I am only bound to invoke memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in silence; a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of connection.
When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations;—all these things were discovered; and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution.
Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathizing minds; his office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, for eight years—six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance.
During these eight years my life was uniform, but not unhappy, because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies and a desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on. I availed myself fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years; but at the end of that time I altered.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary; to her instruction I owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married, removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county, and, consequently, was lost to me.
From the day she left I was no longer the same; with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits; more harmonious thoughts, what seemed better regulated feelings, had become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content; to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character.
But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple; I saw her in her travelling-dress step into a post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony, I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow, and then retired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday granted in honor of the occasion.
I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss and thinking how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me; namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple, or, rather, that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity, and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone; it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in Lowood; my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse to seek real knowledge of life amid its perils.
I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects, to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it further! I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood; and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all been spent at school; Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world; school rules, school duties, school habits, and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies; such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough. I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it, and framed an humbler supplication; for change, stimulus; that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space. "Then," I cried, half desperate, "grant me, at least, a new servitude!"
Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me down stairs.
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bed-time; even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her! It seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for relief.
Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; tonight I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived.
"A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquized (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). "I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment; delightful sounds, truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But servitude! that must be matter of fact. Any one may serve; I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing feasible? Yes, yes; the end is not so difficult, if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it."
I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain; it was a chilly night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded to think again with all my might.
"What do I want? A new place, in a new house, among new faces, under new circumstances; I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I suppose; I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?"
I could not tell; nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster; I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos, and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labor, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.
A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down it came quietly and naturally to my mind: "Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the—shire Herald."
"How? I know nothing about advertising."
Replies rose smooth and prompt now:
"You must inclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the Herald; you must put it, the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed to J. E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire, in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act accordingly."
This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; I had it in a clear, practical form; I felt satisfied, and fell asleep.
With earliest day, I was up. I had my advertisement written, inclosed, and directed, before the bell rung to rouse the school; it ran thus:—
"A young lady accustomed to tuition (had I not been a teacher two years?) is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen (I thought that as I was barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my own age). She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good English education, together with French, drawing, and music (in those days, reader, this, now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive). Address J. E., Post-office, Lowton,—shire."
This document remained locked in my drawer all day; after tea, I asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers. Permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were still long. I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart.
The succeeding week seemed long; it came to an end at last, however, like all sublunary things, and once more, toward the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale; but that day I thought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water.
My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker's to the post-office; it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.
"Are there any letters for J. E.?" I asked.
She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer, and fumbled among its contents for a long time; so long that my hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J. E.
"Is there only one?" I demanded.
"There are no more," said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my face homeward; I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by eight, and it was already half-past seven.
Various duties awaited me on my arrival; I had to sit with the girls during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers, to see them to bed; afterward I supped with the other teachers. Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion; we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burned out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect; she was already snoring, before I had finished undressing. There still remained an inch of candle; I now took out my letter, the seal was an initial F.; I broke it, the contents were brief.
"If J. E., who advertised in the —shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J. E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars, to the direction:
"Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote,—shire."
I examined the document long; the writing was old-fashioned and rather uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance was satisfactory; a private fear had haunted me that, in thus acting for myself and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavors to be respectable, proper, en règle. I now felt that an elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw her in a black gown and widow's cap; frigid, perhaps, but not uncivil; a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless, was the name of her house, a neat, orderly spot, I was sure; though I failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises. Millcote, —shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England; yes, I saw it, both the shire and the town.—shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote county where I now resided; that was a recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement; Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A—; a busy place enough, doubtless; so much the better; it would be a complete change, at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and clouds of smoke; "but," I argued, "Thornfield will, probably, be a good way from the town."
Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out.
Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be confined to my own breast; I must impart them, in order to achieve their success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent, during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting a new situation, where the salary would be double what I now received (for at Lowood I only got £15 per annum); and requested she would break the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst or some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references. She obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next day she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to, as she was my natural guardian. A note was accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that "I might do as I pleased; she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs." This note went the round of the committee, and, at last, after what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition if I could; and an assurance added, that, as I had always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should forthwith be furnished me.
This testimonial I accordingly received in about a week; forwarded a copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady's reply, stating that she was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my assuming the post of governess in her house.
I now busied myself in preparations; the fortnight passed rapidly. I had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk, the same I had brought with me eight years ago from Gateshead.
The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half an hour the carrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton; whither I myself was to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and now, having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could not. Though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing tonight, a new one opening to-morrow; impossible to slumber in the interval. I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished.
"Miss," said a servant, who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering like a troubled spirit, "a person below wishes to see you."
"The carrier, no doubt," I thought, and ran down stairs without inquiry. I was passing the back parlor, or teacher's sitting-room, the door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out:
"It's her, I am sure! I could have told her anywhere!" cried the individual, who stopped my progress and took my hand.
I looked; I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, yet still young; very good looking, with black hair and eyes, and lively complexion.
"Well, who is it?" she asked in a voice and with a smile I half recognized; "you've not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?"
In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously. "Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!" that was all I said; whereat she half laughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlor. By the fire stood a little fellow three years old, in plaid frock and trousers.
"That is my little boy," said Bessie, directly.
"Then you are married, Bessie?"
"Yes; nearly five years since, to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I've a little girl besides Bobby there, that I've christened Jane."
"And you don't live at Gateshead?"
"I live at the Lodge; the old porter has left."
"Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie; but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?" but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.
"You're not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout," continued Mrs. Leaven. "I dare say they've not kept you too well at school; Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are, and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth."
"Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?"
"Very. She went up to London last winter with her mamma, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her, but his relations were against the match; and—what do you think? he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away, but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out; I believe she was envious, and now she and her sister lead a cat-and-dog life together; they are always quarrelling."
"Well, and what of John Reed?"
"Oh, he is not doing so well as his mamma could wish. He went to college, and he got-plucked, I think they call it; and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law; but, he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think."
"What does he look like?"
"He is very tall; some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips."
"And Mrs. Reed?"
"Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she's not quite easy in her mind. Mr. John's conduct does not please her; he spends a deal of money."
"Did she send you here, Bessie?"
"No, indeed; but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I'd just set off and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach."
"I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie." I said this laughing; I perceived that Bessie's glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration.
"No, Miss Jane, not exactly. You are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you. You were no beauty as a child."
I smiled at Bessie's frank answer. I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import. At eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire, brings anything but gratification.
"I dare say you are clever, though," continued Bessie, by way of solace. "What can you do? Can you play on the piano?"
"A little."
There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me to sit down and give her a tune. I played a waltz or two, and she was charmed.
"The Miss Reeds could not play as well!" said she, exultingly. "I always said you would surpass them in learning; and can you draw?"
"That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece." It was a landscape in water-colors, of which I had made a present to the superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the committee on my behalf; and which she had framed and glazed.
"Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed's drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it; and have you learned French?"
"Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it."
"And you can work on muslin and canvass?"
"I can."
"Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be; you will get on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I wanted to ask you—have you ever heard anything from your father's kinsfolk, the Eyres?"
"Never in my life."
"Well, you know missis always said they were poor and quite despicable; and they may be poor, but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead, and wanted to see you. Missis said you were at school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay—he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother."
"What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?"
"An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine—the butler did tell me—"
"Madeira?" I suggested.
"Yes, that is it—that is the very word."
"So he went?"
"Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house; missis was very high with him; she called him afterward a 'sneaking trades-man.' My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant."
"Very likely," I returned; "or perhaps clerk or agent to a wine-merchant."
Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was obliged to leave me. I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms; there each went her separate way—she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 11 | Anew chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn, at Millcote, with such large-figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantel-piece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil-lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the rawness of an October day. I left Lowton at four o'clock A.M., and the Millcote town-clock is now just striking eight.
Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind; I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the "boots" placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative; so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room; and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world; cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half an hour elapsed, and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.
"Is there a place in this neighborhood called Thornfield?" I asked of the waiter who answered the summons.
"Thornfield! don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar." He vanished, but reappeared instantly.
"Is your name Eyre, miss?"
"Yes."
"Person here waiting for you."
I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn passage; a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lighted street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance.
"This will be your luggage, I suppose!" said the man, rather abruptly, when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.
"Yes."
He hoisted it on the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in. Before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.
"A matter of six miles."
"How long shall we be before we get there?"
"Happen an hour and a half."
He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person; so much the better; I never lived among fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best—it is a pity that doing one's best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her; let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?"
I let down the window and looked out. Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude—much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district. I felt we were in a different region to Lowood—more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said:
"You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now."
Again I looked out—we were passing a church; I saw its low, broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights, too, on a hill-side, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates; we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house; candle-light gleamed from one curtained bow-window—all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
"Will you walk this way, ma'am?" said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round; she ushered me into a room, whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cozy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view.
A snug, small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair, high-backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron—exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder-looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing, in short, was wanting to complete the beau ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride, John drives so slowly; you must be cold—come to the fire."
"Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?" said I.
"Yes, you are right; do sit down."
She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble.
"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus, and cut a sandwich or two; here are the keys of the storeroom."
And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant.
"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll see it carried into your room," she said, and bustled out.
"She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness; this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon."
She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before received, and that, too, shown by my employer and superior. But as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax tonight?" I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me.
"What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
"Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil."
"Indeed? Then she is not your daughter?"
"No—I have no family."
I should have followed up my first inquiry by asking in what way Miss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions; besides, I was sure to hear in time.
"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee, "I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years, perhaps, but still it is a respectable place. Yet, you know, in winter time, one feels dreary quite alone, in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then, you see, they are only servants, and one can't converse with them on terms of equality; one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it was a severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew) not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much; she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better; sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse. A child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay."
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
"But I'll not keep you sitting up late tonight," said she; "it is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day; you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed I'll show you your bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers; to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself."
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way up stairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the stair-case window was high and latticed; both it, and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened, looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions and furnished in ordinary modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bid me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious stair-case, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly; when I awoke it was broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window-curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young; I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me—one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I can not precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant; not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period.
I rose. I dressed myself with care; obliged to be plain—for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance, or careless of the impression I made; on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say; I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quaker-like as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax; and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet-table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the hall; I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one I remember represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace); at a bronze lamp pendent on the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak, curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up, and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three stories high, of proportions not vast, though considerable; a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat; battlements around the top gave it a picturesque look. Its gray front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing; they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Further off were hills; not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet, quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield; its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door.
"What! out already?" said she. "I see you are an early riser." I went up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
"How do you like Thornfield?" she asked. I told her I liked it very much.
"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener; great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor."
"Mr. Rochester!" I exclaimed. "Who is he?"
"The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he was called Rochester?"
Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
"I thought," I continued, "Thornfield belonged to you."
"To me! Bless you, child! what an idea! To me? I am only the housekeeper—the manager. To be sure, I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side; or, at least, my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband; but I never presume on the connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper; my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more."
"And the little girl—my pupil?"
"She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He intends to have her brought up in —shire, I believe. Here she comes with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse." The enigma then was explained; this affable and kind little widow was no great dame, but a dependent like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part; so much the better—my position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not, at first, appear to notice me; she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
"Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day." She approached.
"C'est là ma gouvernante?" said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse, who answered:
"Mais oui, certainement."
"Are they foreigners?" I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the continent and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little; I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say."
Fortunately I had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot, as often as I could, and had, besides, during the last seven years, learned a portion of French by heart daily—applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher—I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hands with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her into breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue; she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
"Ah!" cried she in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does; I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad; nobody here understands her; Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked—how it did smoke—and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And, Mademoiselle —, what is your name?"
"Eyre—Jane Eyre."
"Aire! Bah! I cannot say it. Well; our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty, clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week; I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."
"Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.
"I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents; I wonder if she remembers them?"
"Adèle," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty, clean town you spoke of?"
"I lived long ago with mamma; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mamma used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mamma, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them; I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?"
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls, and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gayety of her demeanor, how little his desertion has affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was; at least I thought so.
Adèle sang the canzonet tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee, and said, "Now, mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry."
Assuming an attitude, she began La Ligue des Rats; fable de La Fontaine. She then declaimed the little piece, with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice, and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual, indeed, at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.
"Was it your mamma who taught you that piece?" I asked.
"Yes, and she just used to say it in this way; 'Qu'avez vous done? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!' She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now, shall I dance for you?"
"No, that will do; but after your mamma went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?"
"With Madame Frédéric and her husband; she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mamma. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frédéric, and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys; but you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he has gone back again himself, and I never see him."
After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one book-case left open, containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new, and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply; she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use.
As I was going up stairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: "Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose," said she. She was in a room, the folding doors of which stood open. I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in stained glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
"What a beautiful room!" I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen anything half so imposing.
"Yes, this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window to let in a little air and sunshine, for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room, yonder, feels like a vault."
She pointed to a wide arch, corresponding to the window, and hung, like it, with a Tyrian-dyedcurtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place—so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed, in rich contrast, crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantel-piece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire.
"In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!" said I. "No dust, no canvass coverings; except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily."
"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness."
"Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?"
"Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them."
"Do you like him? Is he generally liked?"
"Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighborhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind."
"Well, but leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?"
"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants, but he has never lived much among them."
"But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?"
"Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps. He has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him."
"In what way is he peculiar?"
"I don't know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly understand him—in short, at least, I don't; but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master."
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things; the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes—a gentleman—a landed proprietor—nothing more. She inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity.
When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her up stairs and down stairs, admiring as I went, for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand; and some of the third story rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed; and the imperfect light, entering by their narrow casements, showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests, in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools, still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third story of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past—a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds—shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings, crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings—all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
"Do the servants sleep in these rooms?" I asked.
"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back. No one ever sleeps here. One would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt."
"So I think. You have no ghost, then?"
"None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
"Nor any traditions of one—no legends or ghost stories?"
"I believe not; and yet it is said, the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time. Perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now."
"Yes; 'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,' " I muttered. "Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she was moving away.
"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?" I followed still, up a very narrow stair-case to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the Hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements, and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map; the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the gray base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder. The attic seemed black as a vault, compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sun-lighted scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the Hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret stair-case. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third story; narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard's castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped; the sound ceased, only for an instant; it begun again, louder; for, at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued.
"Mrs. Fairfax!" I called out; for I now heard her descending the great stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?"
"Some of the servants, very likely," she answered; "perhaps Grace Poole."
"Did you hear it?" I again inquired.
"Yes, plainly; I often hear her; she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together."
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.
"Grace!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation, but that neither scene nor season favored fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out—a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face; any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
"Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions!" Grace courtesied silently and went in.
"She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid'swork," continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By-the-by, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?"
The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming:—
"Mesdames, vous êtes servies!" adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi!"
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 12 | The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoiled and indulged, and, therefore, was sometimes wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste, which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound affection, and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.
This, par parenthèse, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion; but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adèle's welfare and progress, and a quiet liking to her little self, just as I cherished toward Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society, proportionate to the tranquilregard she had for me, and the moderation of her mind and her character.
Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add, further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds—when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road—or when, while Adèle played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three stair-cases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and, having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line; that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of, but never seen; that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold.
Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it; the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third story, backward and forward, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it—and certainly they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously, quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.
It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity; they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions, besides political rebellions, ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally; but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them; if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.
When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh: the same—the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled me; I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen, and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities; hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words; a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort.
The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people, but in no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.
October, November, December, passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adèle, because she had a cold; and, as Adèle seconded the request with an ardor that reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long morning; Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak, and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adèle comfortably seated in her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlor fireside, and given her her best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and having replied to her "Revenez bientôt, ma bonne amie, ma chère Mademoiselle Jeannette," with a kiss, I set out.
The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyze the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o'clock; the church-bell tolled as I passed under the belfry; the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. 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 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 gray 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 among the trees, and sunk crimson and clear behind them. I turned eastward.
On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momently: 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 among other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigor 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 color made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one mask of Bessie's "Gytrash"—a lion-like creature, 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 common place 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 reestablished, 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 looked ireful and thwarted just now. He was past youth, but had not reached middle age; 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-humored to me when I addressed him, if he had put off my offer of assistance gayly 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 neighborhood; 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."
"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 endeavored 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 sprung 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 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 reentering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome stair-case, 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 a 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 amid 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 backward and forward 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 gray 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 lighted only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak stair-case. 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 mantel-piece; I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, among 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 rung 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 Adela—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 up stairs to take off my things. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 13 | Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon's orders, went to bed early that night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come down, it was to attend to business; his agent and some of his tenants were arrived, and waiting to speak with him.
Adèle and I had now to vacate the library; it would be in daily requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lighted in an apartment up stairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that Thornfield Hall was a changed place; no longer silent as a church, it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door or a clang of the bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it—it had a master; for my part, I liked it better.
Adèle was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply; she kept running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go down stairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami, Monsieur Édouard Fairfax de Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his preno mens), and to conjecture what presents he had brought her; for it appears he had intimated the night before that, when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found among it a little box in whose contents she had an interest.
"Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura là dedans un cadeau pour moi, et peut-être pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parlé de vous: il m'a demandé le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'était pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale. J'ai dit qu'oui: car c'est vrai, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?"
I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the school room. At dark I allowed Adèle to put away books and work, and to run down stairs; for from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window, but nothing was to be seen thence; twilight and snow-flakes together thickened the air and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the fireside.
In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I remember to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had been piecing together, and scattering, too, some heavy, unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude.
"Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with him in the drawing-room this evening," said she; "he has been so much engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before."
"When is his tea-time?" I inquired.
"Oh, at six o'clock; he keeps early hours in the country. You had better change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is a candle."
"Is it necessary to change my frock?"
"Yes, you had better. I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester is here."
This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's aid, replaced my black stuff dress by one of black silk, the best and the only additional one I had, except one of light gray, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilet, I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions.
"You want a brooch," said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake; I put it on, and then we went down stairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was rather a trial to appear, thus formally summoned, in Mr. Rochester's presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond.
Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantel-piece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire lay Pilot; Adèle knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adèle and the dog; the fire shone full on his face. I knew my traveller, with his broad and jetty eyebrows, his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognized his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty, his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonized in squareness with his physiognomy. I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term, broad-chested and thin-flanked, though neither tall nor graceful.
Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he never lifted his head as we approached.
"Here is Miss Eyre, sir," said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child.
"Let Miss Eyre be seated," said he; and there was something in the forced, stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed further to express, "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her."
I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me. I could not have returned or repaid it by answering grace and elegance on my part. But harsh caprice laid me under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant; I felt interested to see how he would go on.
He went on as a statue would; that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, and she began to talk. Kindly, as usual—and, as usual, rather trite—she condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on the annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then she commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it.
"Madam, I should like some tea," was the sole rejoinder she got. She hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adèle went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch.
"Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?" said Mrs. Fairfax to me; "Adèle might perhaps spill it."
I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favor, cried out:
"N'est-ce-pas, Monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?"
"Who talks of cadeaux?" said he, gruffly. "Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?" and he searched my face with eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.
"I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them; they are generally thought pleasant things."
"Generally thought! But what do you think?"
"I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance. A present has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature."
"Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adèle; she demands a 'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she sees me—you beat about the bush."
"Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adèle has; she can prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right, too, of custom; for she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment."
"Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adèle, and find you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright; she has no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement."
"Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau'; I am obliged to you; it is the meed teachers most covet; praise of their pupils' progress."
"Humph!" said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence.
"Come to the fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adèle was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonières. We obeyed, as in duty bound. Adèle wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot.
"You have been resident in my house three months?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you came from—?"
"From Lowood school, in—shire."
"Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?"
"Eight years."
"Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution? No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay-lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse; I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"
"I have none."
"Nor ever had, I suppose; do you remember them?"
"No."
"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?"
"For whom, sir?"
"For the men in green; it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?"
I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "And not even in Hay-lane or the fields about it could you find a trace of them. I don't think either summer or harvest or winter moon will ever shine on their revels more."
Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and with raised eyebrows seemed wondering what sort of talk this was.
"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have some sort of kinsfolk—uncles and aunts?"
"No; none that I ever saw."
"And your home?"
"I have none."
"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"
"I have no brothers or sisters."
"Who recommended you to come here?"
"I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement."
"Yes," said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, "and I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher to Adèle."
"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr. Rochester; "eulogiums will not bias me—I shall judge for myself. She began by felling my horse."
"Sir?" said Mrs. Fairfax.
"I have to thank her for this sprain."
The widow looked bewildered.
"Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?"
"No, sir."
"Have you seen much society?"
"None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of Thornfield."
"Have you read much?"
"Only such books as fell in my way; and they have not been numerous or very learned."
"You have lived the life of a nun; no doubt you are well drilled in religious forms; Brocklehurst, who, I understand, directs Lowood, is a parson, is he not?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you girls probably worshipped him as a convent full of religieuses would worship their director."
"Oh, no."
"You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest? That sounds blasphemous."
"I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is a harsh man—at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair, and, for economy's sake, bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could hardly sew."
"That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again caught the drift of the dialogue.
"And was that the head and front of his offending?" demanded Mr. Rochester.
"He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go to bed."
"What age were you when you went to Lowood?"
"About ten."
"And you stayed there eight years; you are now, then, eighteen?"
I assented.
"Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid I should hardly have been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And now, what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"
"A little."
"Of course; that is the established answer. Go into the library—I mean, if you please. (Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say 'Do this,' and it is done; I cannot alter my customary habits for one new inmate.) Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you, leave the door open, sit down to the piano, and play a tune."
I departed, obeying his directions.
"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play a little, I see; like any other English schoolgirl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well."
I closed the piano, and returned. Mr. Rochester continued:
"Adèle showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. I don't know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?"
"No, indeed!" I interjected.
"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unless you are certain—I can recognize patchwork."
"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."
I brought the portfolio from the library.
"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adèle and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.
"No crowding," said Mr. Rochester; "take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."
He deliberately scrutinized each sketch and painting. Three he laid aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.
"Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax," said he, "and look at them with Adèle; you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive these pictures were done by the one hand; was that hand yours?"
"Yes."
"And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought."
"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation."
"Where did you get your copies?"
"Out of my head."
"That head I see now on your shoulders?"
"Yes, sir."
"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"
"I should think it may have; I should hope—better."
He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately.
While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are; and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived.
These pictures were in water-colors. The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swelled sea; all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground, or, rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet, set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my pallet could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.
The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill, with grass and some leaves slanted as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight; rising into the sky, was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapor; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection, like moonlight, the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.
The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar wintry sky; a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a head, a colossal head, inclined toward the iceberg, and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a brow quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above the temples, amid wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was the "Likeness of a Kingly Crown"; what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."
"Were you happy when you painted these pictures?" asked Mr. Rochester, presently.
"I was absorbed, sir; yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known."
"That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been few; but I dare say you did exist in a kind of artist's dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long each day?"
"I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night; the length of the midsummer days favored my inclination to apply."
"And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labors!"
"Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realize."
"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought: but no more, probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school girl, peculiar. As to the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star, you must have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did you see Latmos? for that is Latmos. There, put the drawings away!"
I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio when, looking at his watch, he said, abruptly, "It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adèle sit up so long? Take her to bed."
Adèle went to kiss him before quitting the room; he endured the caress, but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so much.
"I wish you all good-night, now," said he, making a movement of the hand toward the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting; I took my portfolio; we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew.
"You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax, "I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adèle to bed.
"Well, is he?"
"I think so; he is very changeful and abrupt."
"True; no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made."
"Why?"
"Partly because it is his nature—and we can none of us help our nature; and partly, he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and make his spirits unequal."
"What about?"
"Family troubles, for one thing."
"But he has no family."
"Not now; but he has had, or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder brother a few years since."
"His elder brother?"
"Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of the property; only about nine years."
"Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as to be still inconsolable for his loss?"
"Why, no; perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of the name; and soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune. What the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life. I don't think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother, without a will, left him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place."
"Why should he shun it?"
"Perhaps he thinks it gloomy."
The answer was evasive—I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester's trials. She averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to drop the subject, which I did accordingly. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 14 | For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and in the afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighborhood called, and sometimes stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal, probably to return these visits, as he generally did not come back until late at night.
During this interval, even Adèle was seldom sent for to his presence, and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencounter in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery; when he would sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentle manlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alteration; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me.
One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio, in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents; the gentlemen went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them. Soon after they were gone, he rung the bell: a message came that I and Adèle were to go down stairs. I brushed Adèle's hair and made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch—all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement—we descended, Adèle wondering whether the petit coffre was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was gratified; there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct.
"Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running toward it.
"Yes—there is your 'boîte' at last; take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it," said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. "And mind," he continued, "don't bother me with any details of the anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails; let your operation be conducted in silence—tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?"
Adèle seemed scarcely to need the warning; she had already retired to a sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed:
"Oh, Ciel! Que c'est beau!" and then remained absorbed in ecstatic contemplation.
"Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half-rising from his seat to look round to the door, near which I stood.
"Ah! well; come forward; be seated here." He drew a chair near his own. "I am not fond of the prattle of children," he continued; "for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening tête à tête with a brat. Don't draw that chair further off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it—if you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-by, I must have mine in mind; it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to be thicker than water."
He rang and dispatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived, knitting basket in hand.
"Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose; I have forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as au ditress and interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever performed."
Adèle, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the waxen contents of her "boite," pouring out, meantime, explanations and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of.
"Now I have performed the part of a good host," pursued Mr. Rochester, "put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a little further forward; you are yet too far back; I cannot see you without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have no mind to do."
I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly.
We were, as I have said, in the dining-room; the lustre, which had been lighted for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adèle (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.
Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before—not quite so stern; much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure, but I think it very probable. He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood—more expanded and genial, and also more self-indulgent, than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still, he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes—for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy.
"You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he; "do you think me handsome?"
I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware.
"No, sir."
"Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you," said he; "you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-by, when they are directed piercingly to my face, as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?"
"Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes differ; that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort."
"You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on; what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any other man?"
"Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer. I intended no pointed repartee; it was only a blunder."
'Just so; I think so; and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me; does my forehead not please you?"
He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.
"Now, ma'am, am I a fool?"
"Far from it, sir. You would perhaps think me rude if I inquired, in return, whether you are a philanthropist?"
"There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat my head; and that is because I said I did not like the society of children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience"; and he pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty—and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head; "and besides, I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a feeling fellow enough; partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky; but fortune has knocked me about since; she has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an India-rubber ball, pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes; does that leave hope for me?"
"Hope of what, sir?"
"Of my final retransformation from India-rubber back to flesh?"
"Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought, and I did not know what answer to make to his queer question; how could I tell whether he was capable of being retransformed?
"You look very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug—so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative tonight."
With this announcement he rose from his chair and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantle-piece; in that attitude his shape was seen plainly, as well as his face, his unusual breadth of chest disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanor; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference; and even, in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence.
"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative tonight," he repeated; "and that is why I sent for you. The fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk. Adèle is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will; you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you since; other ideas have driven yours from my head; but tonight I am resolved to be at ease—to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out—to learn more of you—therefore speak."
Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complaisant or submissive smile either.
"Speak," he urged.
"What about, sir?"
"Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself."
Accordingly I sat and said nothing. "If he expects me to talk, for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person," I thought.
"You are dumb, Miss Eyre."
I was dumb still. He bent his head a little toward me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.
"Stubborn?" he said, "and annoyed. Ah, it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an inferior; that is (correcting himself) I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years' difference in age, and a century's advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j'y tiens, as Adèle would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point—cankering as a rusty nail."
He had deigned an explanation—almost an apology. I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.
"I am willing to amuse you if I can, sir—quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them."
"Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful—abrupt—perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated: namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?"
"Do as you please, sir."
"That is no answer; or, rather, it is a very irritating, because a very evasive one; reply clearly."
"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience."
"Humph! promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it would never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued or hurt by the tone of command—will you?"
I smiled. I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar. He seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders.
"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing expression; "but speak, too."
"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders."
"Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh, yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well, then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?"
"No, sir, not on that ground; but on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his dependency, I agree heartily."
"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?"
"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence; one, I rather like; the other, nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary."
"Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner; no, on the contrary, affectation or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one's meaning, are the usual rewards of candor. Not three in three thousand raw schoolgirl governesses would have answered me as you have just done. But I don't mean to flatter you; if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours; nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions; for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points."
"And so may you," I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind. He seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken, as well as imagined:
"Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own; I know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others. I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a color of life, to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbors to myself. I started, or rather (for, like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since; but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you—wiser—almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure—an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment; is it not?"
"How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?"
"All right, then—limpid, salubrious; no gush of bilgewater had turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen—quite your equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre, one of the better end, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't see it; at least, I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-by, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then, take my word for it, I am not a villain; you are not to suppose that—not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite, commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor, petty dissipations, with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets. People will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to talk of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy—not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."
"How do you know? how can you guess all this, sir?"
"I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should—so I should; but you see I was not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool; I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he; I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm—God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life."
"Repentance is said to be its cure, sir."
"It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform—I have strength yet for that—if—but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life; and I will get it, cost what it may."
"Then you will degenerate still more, sir."
"Possibly; yet why should I, if I can get sweet fresh pleasure? And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor."
"It will sting—it will taste bitter, sir."
"How do you know, you never tried it. How very serious—how very solemn you look; and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head" (taking one from the mantle-piece). "You have no right to preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries."
"I only remind you of your own words, sir; you said error brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence."
"And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flitted across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation; it was very genial, very soothing, I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks its entrance to my heart."
"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."
"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss, and a messenger from the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?"
"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled, when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it."
"Not at all—it bears the most gracious message in the world; for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"
He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to inclose in their embrace the invisible being.
"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim—a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good; my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."
"To speak truth, sir I don't understand you at all; I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing I know; you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection—one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would, in a few years, have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure."
"Justly thought, rightly said, Miss Eyre; and at this moment, I am paving hell with energy."
"Sir?"
"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been."
"And better?"
"And better—as much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to doubt me; I don't doubt myself; I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and, at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians, that both are right."
"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalize them."
"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute; unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."
"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse."
"Sententious sage! so it is; but I swear by my household gods not to abuse it."
"You are human and fallible."
"I am; so are you—what then?"
"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted."
"What power?"
"That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action, 'Let it be right.'"
"'Let it be right'—the very words; you have pronounced them."
"May it be right, then," I said as I rose, deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me, and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration—at least, beyond its present reach—and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance.
"Where are you going?"
"To put Adèle to bed; it is past her bed-time."
"You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx."
"Your language is enigmatical, sir; but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid."
"You are afraid—your self-love dreads a blunder."
"In that sense I do feel apprehensive—I have no wish to talk nonsense."
"If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to answer—I see, you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily; believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father, or master, or what you will—to smile too gayly, speak too freely, or move too quickly; but in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see, at intervals, the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of the cage; a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going?"
"It has struck nine, sir."
"Never mind; wait a minute; Adèle is not ready to go to bed yet. My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, favors observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally watched Adèle (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious study—reasons that I may, nay that I shall, impart to you some day); she pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. 'Il faut que je l'essaie!' cried she; 'et à l'instant même!' and she rushed out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process; in a few minutes she will reenter; and I know what I shall see, a miniature of Céline Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of—; but never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a shock; such is my presentiment; stay, now, to see whether it will be realized."
Ere long, Adèle's little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of rose-colored satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings and small white satin sandals.
"Est-ce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forward: "et mes souliers? et mes bas? Tenez-je crois que je vais danser!"
And spreading out her dress, she chasséed across the room; till, having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming—
"Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonté"; then rising, she added, "C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce-pas, monsieur?"
"Precise-ly!" was the answer; "and 'comme cela,' she charmed my English gold out of my British breeches' pocket. I have been green, too, Miss Eyre—ay, grass-green; not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once freshened me. My spring is gone, however; but it has left me that French floweret on my hands; which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprung, having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom; especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I'll explain all this some day. Good-night." |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 15 | Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it.
It was one afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adèle in the grounds, and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her.
He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera dancer, Céline Varens, toward whom he once cherished what he called a "grande passion" This passion Céline had professed to return with even superior ardor. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was; he believed, as he said, that she preferred his "taille d'athlète" to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.
"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in a hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the received style—like any other spoony. I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trod the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had-as I deserve to have—the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening, when Céline did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence. No—I exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about her; it was rather a sort of pastile perfume she had left—a scent of musk and amber, than an odor of sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight, and gas-light besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, took out a cigar—I will take one now, if you will excuse me."
Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar; having placed it to his lips, and breathed a trail of Havana incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on.
"I liked bonbons, too, in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was croquant—(overlook the barbarism) croquant chocolate comfits, and smoking alternately, watching, meantime, the equipages that rolled along the fashionable street toward the neighboring opera-house, when, in an elegant close carriage, drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen in the brillant city-night, I recognized the 'voiture' I had had given Céline. She was returning; of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leaned upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted; though muffled in a cloak—an unnecessary incumbrance, by-the-by, on so warm a June evening—I knew her instantly, by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur 'Mon ange'—in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love alone—when a figure jumped from the carriage after her, cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched porte cochère of the hotel.
"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not; I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience; your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come some day to a craggy pass of the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise; either you will be dashed to atoms on crag-points, or lifted up and borne on by some master wave into a calmer current—as I am now.
"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield; its antiquity; its retirement; its old crow-trees and thorn-trees; its gray façade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin; and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it; shunned it like a great plague-house! How I do still abhor—"
He ground his teeth and was silent; he arrested his step and struck his boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.
We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire—impatience, disgust, detestation—seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed; something hard and cynical, self-willed and resolute; it settled his passion and petrified his countenance. He went on.
"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You like Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front, between the upper and lower rows of windows. 'Like it if you can! Like it if you dare!'
"'I will like it,' said I. 'I dare like it'; and" (he subjoined moodily) "I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to goodness—yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been; than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hinderances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood."
Adèle here ran before him with her shuttlecock. "Away!" he cried harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!" Continuing then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point whence he had abruptly diverged.
"Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mademoiselle Varens entered?"
I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question; but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes toward me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow.
"Oh, I had forgotten Céline! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before; you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution, were made to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own—I know it is one not liable to take infection; it is a peculiar mind; it is a unique one. Happily, I do not mean to harm it; but if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me." After this digression he proceeded.
"I remained in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir no doubt,' thought I; 'let me prepare an ambush.' So putting my hand in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to 'lovers' whispered vows'; then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture. Céline's chambermaid entered, lighted a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple were thus revealed to me clearly; both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens' shining in satin and jewels—my gifts of course—and there was her companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roué of a vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On recognizing him, the fang of the snake—jealousy—was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Céline sunk under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I, who had been her dupe.
"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely; frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabor me soundly; but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way; especially Céline; who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal defects—deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she called my 'beauté mâle'; wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me point-blank at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time, and—"
Adèle here came running up again.
"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and wishes to see you."
"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon them; liberated Céline from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor, etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But, unluckily, the Varens, six months before, had given me this fillette, Adèle, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance; Pilot is more like me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on Adèle's part to be supported by me—nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father—but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and protégée; you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.—eh?"
"No—Adèle is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours; I have a regard for her, and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoiled pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"
"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now, and you too; it darkens."
But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee, kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked, not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none; no trait, no turn of expression, announced relationship. It was a pity; if she could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.
It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself; a wealthy English-man's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him, when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly-revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion; I regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform toward me than at first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur; when he met me unexpectedly the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me; when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honored by a cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit.
I, indeed, talked comparatively little; but I heard him talk with relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind unacquainted with the world, glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterized); and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.
The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint; the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt, at times, as if he were my relation, rather than my master; yet he was imperious sometimes still, but I did not mind that—I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified, did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred. My thin-crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.
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 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 believe 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, 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 tranquility 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 laid 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 marrow-freezing incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh; low, suppressed, and deep, muttered, as it seemed, at the very key-hole of my chamber-door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought, at first, the goblin-laughter 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 toward the third story stair-case. A door had lately been made to shut in that stair-case; I heard it open and close, and all was still.
"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, left 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 vapor, 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."
"There—I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet; wait two minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes, here is my dressing-gown, now run!"
I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.
"What is it? and who did it?" he asked.
I briefly related to him what had transpired; the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery; the step ascending to the third story; the smoke—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.
He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.
"Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?" I asked.
"Mrs. Fairfax? No—what the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let her sleep unmolested."
"Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife."
"Not at all; just be still. You have a shawl on; if you are not warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in the arm-chair; there—I will put it on. Now place your feet on the stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the third story. Don't move, remember, or call any one."
He went; I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the stair-case door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long time elapsed. I grew weary; it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery-wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. "I hope it is he," thought I, "and not something worse."
He reentered, pale and very gloomy. "I have found it all out," said he, setting his candle down on the washstand; "it is as I thought."
"How, sir?"
He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired, in rather a peculiar tone—
"I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber-door."
"No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground."
"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before I should think, or something like it?"
"Yes, sir; there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole—she laughs in that way. She is a singular person."
'Just so. Grace Poole; you have guessed it. She is, as you say, singular—very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the precise details of tonight's incident. You are no talking fool; say nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs" (pointing to the bed); "and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four; in two hours the servants will be up."
"Good-night, then, sir," said I, departing.
He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go.
"What!" he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already; and in that way?"
"You said I might go, sir."
"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and good will; not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life! snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands."
He held out his hand; I gave him mine; he took it first in one, then in both his own.
"You have saved my life; I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation; but you, it is different—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane."
He paused; gazed at me; words almost visible trembled on his lips—but his voice was checked.
"Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case."
"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some time; I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you; their expression and smile did not"—(again he stopped)—"did not" (he proceeded hastily) "strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii; there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!"
Strange energy was in his voice; strange fire in his look.
"I am glad I happened to be awake," I said; and then I was going.
"What, you will go?"
"I am cold, sir."
"Cold? Yes—and standing in a pool. Go, then, Jane; go!" But he still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an expedient.
"I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir," said I.
"Well, leave me." He relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.
I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly toward the bourne; but I could not reach it, even in fancy—a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium; judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 16 | I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night; I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily expected his coming. He was not in the frequent habit of entering the schoolroom; but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had the impression that he was sure to visit it that day.
But the morning passed just as usual; nothing happened to interrupt the quiet course of Adèle's studies; only, soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighborhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's voice, and Leah's and the cook's—that is, John's wife—and even John's own gruff tones. There were exclamations of "What a mercy master was not burned in his bed!" "It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at night." "How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the water-jug!" "I wonder he waked nobody!" "It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa," &c.
To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and when I passed the room, in going down stairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete order, only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair; but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber—a woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. That woman was no other than Grace Poole.
There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed; on her hard forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and, as I believed, charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was amazed—confounded. She looked up while I still gazed at her; no start, no increase or failure of color, betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or fear of detection. She said, "Good-morning, miss," in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and, taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing.
"I will put her to some test," thought I; "such absolute impenetrability is past comprehension."
"Good-morning, Grace," I said. "Has anything happened here? I thought I heard the servants all talking together a while ago."
"Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the bed-clothes or the woodwork caught, and contrived to quench the flame with the water in the ewer."
"A strange affair!" I said, in a low voice; then, looking at her fixedly—"Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?"
She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then she answered—
"The servants sleep so far off, you know, miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to master's; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing. When people get elderly, they often sleep heavy." She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone, "But you are young, miss, and I should say a light sleeper; perhaps you may have heard a noise?"
"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me; "and at first I thought it was Pilot; but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."
She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure—
"It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, miss, when he was in such danger; you must have been dreaming."
"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness provoked me. Again she looked at me, and with the same scrutinizing and conscious eye.
"Have you told master that you heard a laugh?" she inquired.
"I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning."
"You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the gallery?" she further asked.
She appeared to be cross-questioning me—attempting to draw from me information unawares; the idea struck me that if she discovered I knew or suspected her guilt, she would be playing off some of her malignant pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.
"On the contrary," said I, "I bolted my door."
"Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before you get into bed?"
Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans accordingly! Indignation again prevailed over prudence. I replied, sharply, "Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt—I did not think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall; but in future (and I laid marked stress on the words) I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to lie down."
"It will be wise so to do," was her answer. "This neighborhood is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the Hall being attempted by robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds' worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And, you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting on; but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, miss, are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means, though he often blesses them when they are used discreetly." And here she closed her harangue—a long one for her, and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress.
I still stood absolutely dumbfoundered at what appeared to me her miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook entered.
"Mrs. Poole," said she, addressing Grace, "the servants' dinner will soon be ready; will you come down?"
"No; just put my pint of porter and a bit of pudding on a tray, and I'll carry it up stairs."
"You'll have some meat?"
"Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese—that's all."
"And the sago?"
"Never mind it, at present; I shall be coming down before tea-time; I'll make it myself."
The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me; so I departed.
I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain conflagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her position at Thornfield; in questioning why she had not been given into custody that morning, or at the very least dismissed from her master's service. He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her criminality last night; what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me to secresy? It was strange—a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependents; so much in her power that even when she lifted her hand against his life he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her for it.
Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favored and matronly as she was, the idea could not be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has been young once—her youth would be contemporary with her master's; Mrs. Fairfax told me, once, she had lived here many years. I don't think she can ever have been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and strength of character to compensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric; Grace is eccentric, at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?" But, having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure and uncomely, dry, even coarse face recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye that I thought, "No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet," suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, "you are not beautiful, either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you; at any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last night—remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!"
I well remembered all: language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.
"Qu'avez-vous, mademoiselle?" said she; "Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!"
"I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!" She went on sketching, I went on thinking.
I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving respecting Grace Poole—it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady, and she spoke truth—I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me—I had more color and more flesh; more life, more vivacity; because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.
"Evening approaches," said I, as I looked toward the window. "I have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night. I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient."
When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed tonight, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt; and, if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured—on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint: this suited both him and me.
A tread creaked on the stairs at last; Leah made her appearance, but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room; thither I repaired, glad at least to go down stairs, for that brought me, I imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.
"You must want your tea," said the good lady, as I joined her, "you ate so little at dinner. I am afraid," she continued, "you are not well to-day; you look flushed and feverish."
"Oh, quite well! I never felt better."
"Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the tea-pot while I knit off this kneedle?" Having completed her task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity.
"It is fair tonight," said she, as she looked through the panes, "though not starlight. Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favorable day for his journey."
"Journey! Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out."
"Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted. He is gone to the Leas, Mr. Eshton's place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and others."
"Do you expect him back tonight?"
"No, nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or more; when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded by elegance and gayety, so well provided with all that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen, especially, are often in request on such occasions, and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general favorite; the ladies are very fond of him, though you would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in their eyes; but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look."
"Are there ladies at the Leas?"
"There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the honorable Blanche and Mary Ingram; most beautiful women, I suppose. Indeed, I have seen Blanche, six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lighted up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of the first county-families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of the evening."
"You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax; what was she like?"
"Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to come in, and I sat down in a quiet comer and watched them. I never saw a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen."
"And what was she like?"
"Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck; olive complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. Rochester's—large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head of hair, raven black, and so be comingly arranged; a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an amber-colored scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an amber-colored flower, too, in her hair; it contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls."
"She was greatly admired, of course?"
"Yes, indeed; and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. She was one of the ladies who sang; a gentleman accompanied her on the piano. She and Mr. Rochester sung a duet."
"Mr. Rochester! I was not aware he could sing."
"Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music."
"And Miss Ingram; what sort of a voice had she?"
"A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to listen to her; and she played afterward. I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good."
"And this beautiful and accomplished lady is not yet married?"
"It appears not. I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord Ingram's estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in for everything almost."
"But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her; Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?"
"Oh! yes. But you see, there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. Rochester is near forty; she is but twenty-five."
"What of that? More unequal matches are made every day."
"True; yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing; you have scarcely tasted since you began tea."
"No; I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?"
I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the conversation was turned into another channel.
When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavored to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination's boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.
Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way, a plain, unvarnished tale showing how I had rejected the real and rabidly devoured the ideal; I pronounced judgment to this effect:
That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life: that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
"You, " I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens shown preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family, and a man of the world, to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe? Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night? Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy. Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis fatuus-like, into miry wilds, whence there is no extrication.
"Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.'
"Afterward, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your drawing-box; take your pallet, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest hues, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye; what! you revert to Mr. Rochester's as a model! Order! No snivel! no sentiment! no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose—call it 'Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.'
"Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them; say, 'Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?'
"I'll do it," I resolved; and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep.
I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task; it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart.
Ere long I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit; thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm; which, had they found me unprepared, I should, probably, have been unequal to maintain even externally. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 17 | A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester; ten days, and still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected. When I heard this I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just said, "You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order; keep to your caste; and be too self respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."
I went on with my day's business tranquilly; but, ever and anon, vague suggestion kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering conjectures about new situations; these thoughts I did not think it necessary to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could.
Mr. Rochester had been absent upward of a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.
"It is from the master," said she, as she looked at the direction. "Now I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not."
And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking my coffee (we were at breakfast); it was hot, and I attributed to that circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand shook, and why I involuntarily spilled half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider.
"Well—I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being busy enough now, for a little while at least," said Mrs. Fairfax, still holding the note before her spectacles.
Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of Adèle's pinafore, which happened to be loose; having helped her also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said nonchalantly, "Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?"
"Indeed he is—in three days, he says; that will be next Thursday; and not alone either. I don't know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him; he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; and I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets; so we shall have a full house of it." And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.
The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well-arranged; but it appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, and airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. Adèle ran quite wild in the midst of it; the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were "passées," and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in front chambers, jumping on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated—Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards, and cheese-cakes, and French pastry, to truss game and garnish dessert-dishes.
The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon in time for dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to nurse chimera; and, I believe, I was as active and gay as anybody—Adèle excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to see the third-story stair-case door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief—when I watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms—just say a word, perhaps, to the charwomen about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantel-piece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy upper haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled oaken chamber of the third story; there she sat and sewed—and probably laughed drearily to herself—as companion-less as a prisoner in his dungeon.
The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them; no one discussed her position or enjoyment, no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I once, indeed, overheard a part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked:
"She gets good wages, I guess?"
"Yes," said Leah; "I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain of—there's no stinginess at Thornfield—but they're not one-fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by; she goes every quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave, but I suppose she's got used to the place, and then she's not forty yet; and strong and able for anything. It is too soon for her to give up business."
"She's a good hand, I dare say," said the charwoman.
"Ah! she understands what she has to do; nobody better," rejoined Leah, significantly; "and it is not every one could fill her shoes, not for all the money she gets."
"That it is not!" was the reply. "I wonder whether master—"
The charwoman was going on, but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.
"Doesn't she know?" I heard the woman whisper.
Leah shook her head, and the conversation was, of course, dropped. All I had gathered from it amounted to this, that there was a mystery at Thornfield, and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely excluded.
Thursday came; all work had been completed the previous evening, carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white counterpanes spread, toilet-tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases; both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured, and the great carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the stair-case, were polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all sides.
Afternoon arrived; Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the company—to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adèle, too, would be dressed, though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to the party, that day at least. However, to please her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom, for a sanctum it was now becoming to me, "a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble."
It had been a mild, serene spring day; one of those days which, toward the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now, but the evening was even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open.
"It gets late," said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. "I am glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned, for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if there is anything on the road; one can see a long way from thence in the direction of Millcote." She went to the window. "Here he is!" said she. "Well, John (leaning out), any news?"
"They're coming, ma'am," was the answer. "They'll be here in ten minutes."
Adèle flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side, so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen.
The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the first of the party. Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze, mingling with its transparent folds, and gleaming through them shone rich raven ringlets.
"Miss Ingram!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post below.
The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adèle now petitioned to go down, but I took her on my knee and gave her to understand that she must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for; that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c. "Some natural tears she shed" on being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them.
A joyous stir was now audible in the hall; gentlemen's deep tones and ladies' silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under his roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs, and there was a tripping through the gallery, and soft, cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush.
"Elles changent de toilettes," said Adèle, who, listening attentively, had followed every movement; and she sighed.
"Chez maman," said she, "quand il y avait du monde, je les suivais partout, au salon et à leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c' était si amusant; comme cela on apprend."
"Don't you feel hungry, Adèle?"
"Mais oui, mademoiselle; voilà cinq or six heures que nous n'avons pas mange."
"Well, now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and get you something to eat."
And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back stairs which conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook hung over crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion. In the serhall two coachmen and three gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the Abigails I suppose were up stairs with their mistresses, the new servants that had been hired from Millcote were bustling about everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate or two, and a knife and fork; with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the school room without passing some of their doors, and running the risk of being surprised with my cargo of victualage, so I stood still at this end, which, being windowless, was dark, quite dark now, for the sun was set and twilight gathering.
Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another; each came out gayly and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity; they then descended the stair-case, almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high-born elegance, such as I had never before received.
I found Adèle peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar. "What beautiful ladies!" cried she, in English. "Oh, I wish I might go to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by and by, after dinner?"
"No, indeed, I don't; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about. Never mind the ladies tonight; perhaps you will see them to-morrow; here is your dinner."
She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage; or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a chance of getting no dinner at all; every one down stairs was too much engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out till after nine, and at ten, footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffee-cups. I allowed Adèle to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; "et alors quel dommage!"
I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then, for a change, I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lighted, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backward and forward. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed. Adèle and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee; a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals. I listened long; suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analyzing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amid the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words.
The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adèle, whose head leaned against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies sought their chambers.
The next day was as fine as its predecessor; it was devoted by the party to an excursion to some site in the neighborhood. They set out early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I witnessed both the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at her side: the two rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me.
"You said it was not likely they should think of being married," said I; "but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other ladies."
"Yes, I dare say; no doubt he admires her."
"And she him," I added; "look how she leans her head toward him as if she were conversing confidentially! I wish I could see her face; I have never had a glimpse of it yet."
"You will see her this evening," answered Mrs. Fairfax. "I happened to remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adèle wished to be introduced to the ladies, and he said: 'Oh, let her come into the drawing-room after dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.'"
"Yes—he said that from mere politeness; I need not go, I am sure," I answered.
"Well—I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not think you would like appearing before so gay a party—all strangers; and he replied, in his quick way, 'Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy.'"
"I will not give him that trouble," I answered. "I will go, if no better may be; but I don't like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?"
"No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I'll tell you how to manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into the drawing-room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dining-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please; just let Mr. Rochester see you are there, and then slip away—nobody will notice you."
"Will these people remain long, do you think?"
"Perhaps two or three weeks; certainly not more. After the Easter recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, will have to go up to town and take his seat. I dare say Mr. Rochester will accompany him; it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a stay at Thornfield."
It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adèle had been in a state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the operation of dressing her, that she sobered down. Then the importance of the process quickly steadied her; and by the time she had her curls arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire; when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I quickly was; my best dress (the silver gray one, purchased for Miss Temple's wedding and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We descended.
Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found the apartment vacant, a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax candles shining in bright solitude amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung before the arch; slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.
Adèle, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnizing impression, sat down without a word on the footstool I pointed out to her. I retired to a window-seat and, taking a book from a table near, endeavored to read. Adèle brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee.
"What is it, Adèle?"
"Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette."
"You think too much of your 'toilette,' Adèle; but you may have a flower." And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash. She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress; there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little Parisienne's earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.
A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lighted lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessert-service, covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.
There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose and courtesied to them; one or two bent their heads in return; the others only stared at me.
They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and ottomans; some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books; the rest gathered in a group round the fire—all talked in a low but clear tone, which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names afterwards, and may as well mention them now.
First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little; naive, and childlike in face and manner, and piquant in form. Her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term minois chiffonné: both sisters were fair as lilies.
Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty; very erect, very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems.
Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more ladylike. She had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.
But the three most distinguished-partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band—were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of woman. The dowager might be between forty and fifty; her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age; and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double-chin, disappearing into a throat like a pillar. These features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye; it reminded me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical—very intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) with a truly imperial dignity.
Blanche and Mary were of equal stature—straight and tall as poplars. Mary was too slim, for her height; but Blanche was moulded like a Diana. I regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax's description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted of her; and thirdly—it will out! whether it were such as I should fancy likely to suit Mr. Rochester's taste.
As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fairfax's description. The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets, were all there—but her face? Her face was like her mother's; a youthful, unfurrowed likeness; the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride. It was not, however, so saturnine a pride; she laughed continually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip.
Genius is said to be self-conscious; I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious, indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent. It seems Mrs. Dent had not studied that science, though, as she said, she liked flowers, "especially wild ones"; Miss Ingram had, and she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance. Her trail might be clever, but it was decidedly not good-natured. She played; her execution was brilliant. She sang; her voice was fine. She talked French apart to her mamma and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent.
Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features, too, and a skin some shades fairer—(Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)—but Mary was deficient in life. Her face lacked expression, her eye lustre. She had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both attired in spotless white.
And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be likely to make? I could not tell—I did not know his taste in female beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty; then she was so accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, I thought; and that he did admire her, I already seemed to have obtained proof; to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to see them together.
You are not to suppose, reader, that Adèle has all this time been sitting motionless on the stool at my feet. No; when the ladies entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said, with gravity:
"Bon jour, mesdames."
And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed, "Oh, what a little puppet!"
Lady Lynn had remarked, "It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I suppose—the little French girl he was speaking of."
Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss. Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously—
"What a love of a child!"
And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced between them, chattering alternatively in French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoiled to her heart's content.
At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in the shade—if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lighted apartment; the window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing; they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some young. Henry and Frederic Lynn are very dashing sparks, indeed; and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the district, is gentleman-like; his hair is quite white, his eyebrows and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a père noble de théâtre. Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apathetic and listless look; he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigor of brain.
And where is Mr. Rochester?
He comes in last; I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I try to concentrate my attention on these netting-needles, on the meshes of the purse I am forming—I wish to think only of the work I have in my hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed, an essential service—and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached him at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged, we were! so far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to me. I did not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at the other side of the room, and began conversing with some of the ladies.
No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control; they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking—a precious, yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony; a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless.
Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer." My master's colorless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth—all energy, decision, will—were not beautiful, according to rule, but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me—that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.
I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram—even the military distinction of Colonel Dent contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression; yet I could imagine that most observers would call them attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking. I saw them smile, laugh—it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile, the tinkle of the bell as much significance as their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile—his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating; I expected their eyes to fall, their color to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. "He is not to them what he is to me," I thought; "he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine; I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have, gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments; I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feeling in common with him, I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered; and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him."
Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir George—whom, by-the-by, I have forgotten to describe—a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before the sofa, coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederic Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings of a splendid volume; she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently says little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up at him, and chatters like a wren; she likes him better than she does Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the feet of Louisa; Adèle shares it with him; he is trying to talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram repair? She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully over an album. She seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait too long; she herself selects a mate.
Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as solitary as she stands by the table; she confronts him, taking her station on the opposite side of the mantel-piece.
"Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?"
"Nor am I."
"Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?" (pointing to Adèle). "Where did you pick her up?"
"I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands."
"You should have sent her to school."
"I could not afford it; schools are so dear."
"Why, I suppose you have a governess for her; I saw a person with her just now—is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still behind the window-curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as expensive—more so; for you have them both to keep in addition."
I feared—or should I say hoped?—the allusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrunk further into the shade; but he never turned his eyes.
"I have not considered the subject," said he, indifferently, looking straight before him.
"No—you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should hear mamma on the chapter of governesses; Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were they not, mamma?"
"Did you speak, my own?"
The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property, reiterated her question with an explanation.
"My dearest, don't mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency, and caprice; I thank Heaven I have now done with them!"
Mrs. Dent now bent over to the pious lady, and whispered something in her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that one of the anathematized race was present.
"Tant pis!" said her ladyship, "I hope it may do her good!" Then, in a lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, "I noticed her; I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class."
"What are they, madam?" inquired Mr. Rochester, aloud.
"I will tell you in your private ear," replied she, wagging her turban three times with portentous significancy.
"But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now."
"Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I."
"Oh, don't refer him to me, mamma! I have just one word to say of the whole tribe—they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was with Madame Joubert; Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low-spirited; not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities—spilled our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember those merry days?"
"Yaas, to be sure I do," drawled Lord Ingram; "and the poor old stick used to cry out '0 you villains childs!'—and then we sermonized her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant."
"We did; and Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining—the parson in the pip, as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling in love with each other—at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of 'la belle passion,' and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our dead weights from the house. Dear mamma, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not, my lady mother?"
"Certainly, my best. And I was quite right; depend on that; there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly—"
"Oh gracious, mamma! Spare us the enumeration! Au reste, we all know them; danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached; mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting—insolence accompanying—mutiny and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram of Ingram Park?"
"My lily-flower, you are right now as always."
"Then no more need be said; change the subject."
Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine tone: "Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear anything; nothing put her out. She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?"
"No, never; we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured she would give us anything we asked for."
"I suppose now," said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, "we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant; in order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?"
"Madam, I support you on this point as on every other."
"Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Ed uardo, are you in voice tonight?"
"Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be."
"Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal service."
"Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?"
"A fig for Rizzio!" cried she, tossing her head with all its curls as she moved to the piano. "It is my opinion the fiddler David must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better; to my mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion he was just that sort of wild, fierce, bandit-hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand."
"Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?" cried Mr. Rochester.
"I should say the preference lies with you," responded Colonel Dent.
"On my honor, I am much obliged to you," was the reply.
Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude, talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high horse tonight; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors; she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed.
"Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!" exclaimed she, rattling away at the instrument. "Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa's park-gates; nor to go even so far without mamma's permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman—her legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentlemen, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valor; let their motto be—hunt, shoot, and fight; the rest is not worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a man.
"Whenever I marry," she continued, after a pause, which none interrupted, "I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage; his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you."
"I am all obedience," was the response.
"Here, then, is a corsair-song. Know that I dote on corsairs; and for that reason, sing it con spirito."
"Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water."
"Take care, then; if you don't please me, I will shame you by showing how such things should be done."
"That is offering a premium on incapacity; I shall now endeavor to fail."
"Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a proportionate punishment."
"Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance."
"Ha! explain!" commanded the lady.
"Pardon me, madam; no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for capital punishment."
"Sing!" said she, and again touching the piano she commenced an accompaniment in spirited style.
"Now is my time to slip away," thought I; but the tones that then severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester possessed a fine voice; he did—a mellow, powerful bass, into which he threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the last deep and full vibration had expired—till the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the hall; in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stooped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the stair-case. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him; it was Mr. Rochester.
"How do you do?" he asked.
"I am very well, sir."
"Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?"
I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it; but I would not take that freedom. I answered, "I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir."
"What have you been doing during my absence?"
"Nothing particular; teaching Adèle as usual."
"And getting a good deal paler than you were—as I saw at first sight. What is the matter?"
"Nothing at all, sir."
"Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?"
"Not the least."
"Return to the drawing-room; you are deserting too early."
"I am tired, sir."
He looked at me for a minute.
"And a little depressed," he said. "What about? Tell me."
"Nothing—nothing, sir. I am not depressed."
"But I affirm that you are; so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes—indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, tonight I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle. Good night, my..." He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 18 | Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall, and busy days too; how different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and solitude, I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten; there was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chamber, once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's-maid or a dandy valet.
The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance-hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still, when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment; in-door amusements only became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to out-door gayety.
I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of entertainments was proposed; they spoke of "playing charades," but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third story were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the Abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room.
Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "Miss Ingram is mine, of course," said he; afterward he named the two Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me; I happened to be near him, as I had been fastening the clasps of Mrs. Dent's bracelet, which had got loose.
"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my usual seat.
He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain; the other party, which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the notion.
"No," I heard her say; "she looks too stupid for any game of the sort."
Ere long, a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet; before him, on a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody, unseen, rung the bell merrily; then Adèle (who had insisted on being one of her guardian's party) bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They kneeled, while Mr. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony followed in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognize the pantomime of a marriage At its termination, Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the colonel called out—
"Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed and the curtain fell.
A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising displayed a more elaborately-prepared scene than the last. The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin, which I recognized as an ornament of the conservatory—where it usually stood surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold-fish-and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight.
Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes and swarth skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly; he looked the very model of an eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring.Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion; a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist; an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Is raelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent.
She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request. "She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the bosom of his robe, he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and ear-rings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca; the camels only were wanting.
The divining party again laid their heads together; apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable this scene illustrated. Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the Whole"; whereupon the curtain again descended.
On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed, the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place stood a deal-table and a kitchen chair. These objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished.
Amid this sordid scene sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair, might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.
"Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.
A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they reentered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.
"Do you know," said she, "that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!"
"Is all the soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it toward her.
"Alas! yes; the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge."
"You would like a hero of the road, then?"
"An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate."
"Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses." She giggled, and her color rose.
"Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn." And, as the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the actors—I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene—I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him—I see—her incline her head toward him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder, and wave against his cheek—I hear their mutual whisperings—I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment.
I have told you, reader, that I had learned to love Mr. Rochester. I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed—who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly, as from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship, which, if careless, and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride irresistible.
There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair. Much, too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy, if a woman in my position could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous, or very rarely—the nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy; she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox—I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine. She had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature—nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil—no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good, she was not original. She used to repeat sounding phrases from books; she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity. Tenderness and truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adèle; pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character—watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes, the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity—this guardedness of his—this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments toward her, that my ever-torturing pain arose.
I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons—because her rank and connections suited him. I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill-adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point—this was where the nerve was touched and teased—this was where the fever was sustained and fed: she could not charm him.
If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervor, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers—jealousy and despair; than, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her—acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days; and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration—the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester—to witness their repeated failure—herself unconscious that they did fail—vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complaisancy repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to witness this was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.
Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast, and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons, a silent conquest might have been won.
"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself; it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres and one had but to accept it—to answer what he asked, without pretension, to address him, when needful, without grimace—and it increased, and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on."
I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention; I had thought him a man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram, for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles; I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband's own happiness, offered by this plan, convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant, otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act.
But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master; I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavor to study all sides of his character—to take the bad with the good, and, from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish—their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a despond ing, expression?—that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering among volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape; that something I, at intervals, beheld still, and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare, to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets, and analyze their nature.
Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride—saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their movements of importance—the rest of the party were occupied with their own separate interests and pleasures. The ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences; where they nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton, discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors; for, after all, Mr. Rochester, and, because closely connected with him, Miss Ingram, were the life and soul of the party. If he were absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his reëntrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet; a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gypsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables; the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence. The room and the house were silent; only now and then the merriment of the billiard players was heard from above.
It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adèle, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, exclaimed:
"Voilà Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!"
I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forward from her sofa. The others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for, at the same time, a crunching of wheels, and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs, became audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.
"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram. "He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and Pilot was with him. What has he done with the animals?"
As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking of my spine; in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman alighted, attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.
"Provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram; "you tiresome monkey!" (apostrophizing Adèle); "Who perched you up in the window to give false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.
Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present.
"It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to install myself here till he returns."
His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual—not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English; his age might be about Mr. Rochester's, between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow; otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination, you detected something in his face that displeased, or, rather, that failed to please. His features were regular, but too relaxed; his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life, at least so I thought.
The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till after dinner that I saw him again; he then seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy even less than before; it struck me as being, at the same time, unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering; this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly; there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape; no firmness in that aquiline nose, and small, cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.
As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the of girandoles on the mantel-piece beaming full over him—for he occupied an arm-chair, drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold—I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon; between a meek sheep and the rough-coated, keen-eyed dog, its guardian.
He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been; a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that "extremes meet."
Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they both called him "a beautiful man." Louisa said he was "a love of a creature," and she "adored him"; and Mary instanced his "pretty little mouth, and nice nose," as her ideal of the charming.
"And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!" cried Louisa; "so smooth—none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and such a placid eye and smile!"
And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to Hay Common.
I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country, which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons, of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller; Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.
I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burned out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman"—"quite troublesome."
"Tell her she shall be put in the stocks, if she does not take herself off," replied the magistrate.
"No, stop!" interrupted Colonel Dent. "Don't send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account—better consult the ladies." And speaking aloud, he continued, "Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gypsy camp; Sam, here, says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants' hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before 'the quality,' to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to see her?"
"Surely, colonel," cried Lady Ingram, "you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!"
"But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady," said the footman; "nor can any of the servants; Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here."
"What does she want?" asked Mrs. Eshton.
"'To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she must and will do it."
"What is she like?" inquired the misses Eshton, in a breath.
"A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock."
"Why, she's a real sorceress!" cried Frederic Lynn. "Let us have her in, of course."
"To be sure," rejoined his brother; "it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun."
"My dear boys, what are you thinking about?" exclaimed Lady Lynn.
"I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding," chimed in the Dowager Ingram.
"Indeed, mamma, but you can—and will," pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool, where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. "I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told; therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward."
"My darling Blanche! recollect—"
"I do—I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will—quick, Sam!"
"Yes—yes—yes!" cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. "Let her come—it will be excellent sport!"
The footman still lingered. "She looks such a rough one," said he.
"Go!" ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.
Excitement instantly seized the whole party; a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding, when Sam returned.
"She won't come now," said he. "She says it's not her mission to appear before the 'vulgar herd' (them's her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one."
"You see now, my queenly Blanche," began Lady Ingram, "she encroaches. Be advised, my angel-girl—and—"
"Show her into the library, of course," cut in the "angel-girl." "It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either; I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?"
"Yes, ma'am—but she looks such a tinkler."
"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding."
Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation, rose to full flow once more.
"She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "She wishes to know who will be her first visitor."
"I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go," said Colonel Dent. "Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming."
Sam went and returned.
"She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor," he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, "any ladies either, except the young and single."
"By Jove, she has a taste!" exclaimed Henry Lynn.
Miss Ingram rose solemnly. "I go first," she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men.
"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause—reflect!" was her mamma's cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it le cas to wring her hands, which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.
The minutes passed very slowly—fifteen were counted before the library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.
Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry; she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.
"Well, Blanche?" said Lord Ingram.
"What did she say, sister?" asked Mary.
"What do you think? How do you feel? Is she a real fortune-teller?" demanded the misses Eshton.
"Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me. Really, your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited; you seem, by the importance you all—my good mamma included—ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman.I have seen a gypsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry, and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now, I think, Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened."
Miss Ingram took a book, leaned back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half an hour—during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momentarily darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage; and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.
Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.
Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half scared out of their wits.
"I'm sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all. "She told us such things! She knows all about us!" and they sunk breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.
Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home; keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for.
Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.
In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a "hem" close at my elbow; I turned and saw Sam.
"If you please, miss, the gypsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you; there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?"
"Oh, I will go by all means," I answered; and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye, for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned, and I closed the door quietly behind me.
"If you like, miss," said Sam, "I'll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I'll come in."
"No, Sam, return to the kitchen—I am not in the least afraid." Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 19 | The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the sibyl—if sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet, or, rather, a broad-brimmed gypsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze; she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read. She did not desist immediately on my entrance; it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.
I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life; there was nothing, indeed, in the gypsy's appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black; elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or, rather, jaws; her eye confronted me at once with a bold and direct gaze.
"Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.
"I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself; but I ought to warn you, I have no faith."
"It's like your impudence to say so; I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold."
"Did you? You've a quick ear."
"I have—and a quick eye, and a quick brain."
"You need them all in your trade."
"I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why don't you tremble?"
"I'm not cold."
"Why don't you turn pale?"
"I am not sick."
"Why don't you consult my art?"
"I'm not silly."
The old crone "nichered" a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and, lighting it, began to smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said, very deliberately, "You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly."
"Prove it," I rejoined.
"I will, in few words. You are cold because you are alone; no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you; you are sick, because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you; you are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it awaits you."
She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigor.
"You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house."
"I might say it to almost any one; but would it be true of almost any one?"
"In my circumstances."
"Yes; just so, in your circumstances; but find me another precisely placed as you are."
"It would be easy to find you thousands."
"You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated; very near happiness; yes; within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results."
"I don't understand enigmas, I never could guess a riddle in my life."
"If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm."
"And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?"
"To be sure."
I gave her a shilling; she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it.
"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines; besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written there."
"I believe you," said I.
"No," she continued, "it is in the face; on the forehead, about the eyes, in the eyes themselves, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head."
"Ah! now you are coming to reality," I said as I obeyed her. "I shall begin to put some faith in you presently."
I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal; the glare, however, as she sat only threw her face into deeper shadow; mine, it illumined.
"I wonder with what feelings you came to me tonight," she said, when she had examined me a while. "I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms and not the actual substance."
"I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes; but seldom sad."
"Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future."
"Not I. The utmost I hope is to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself."
"A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-seat (you see I know your habits)—"
"You have learned them from the servants."
"Ah! You think yourself sharp. Well—perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them—Mrs. Poole—"
I started to my feet when I heard the name.
"You have—have you?" thought I; "there is diablerie in the business, after all, then?"
"Don't be alarmed," continued the strange being; "she's a safe hand, is Mrs. Poole; close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you study? One figure whose movements you follow with, at least, curiosity?"
"I like to observe all the faces, and all the figures."
"But do you never single one from the rest, or it may be, two?"
"I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale; it amuses me to watch them."
"What tale do you like best to hear?"
"Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme—courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage."
"And do you like that monotonous theme?"
"Positively, I don't care about it: it is nothing to me."
"Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed with rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you—"
"I what?"
"You know—and, perhaps, think well of."
"I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them, I consider some respectable and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively; but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me."
"You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house?"
"He is not at home."
"A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here tonight, or to-morrow; does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, as it were, out of existence?"
"No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced."
"I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes, that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim; have you never remarked that?"
"Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests."
"No question about his right; but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favored with the most lively and the most continuous?"
"The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I said this rather to myself than to the gypsy, whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart, watching its workings, and taking record of every pulse.
"Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she; "yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive, and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?"
"Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face."
"Detecting! You have analyzed, then. And what did you detect, if not gratitude?"
I said nothing.
"You have seen love; have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?"
"Humph! Not exactly. Your witch's skill is rather at fault sometimes."
"What the devil have you seen, then?"
"Never mind; I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?"
"Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram."
"Shortly?"
"Appearances would warrant that conclusion; and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him; or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago, which made her look wondrous grave; the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her black a-vised suitor to look out; if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll, he's dished."
"But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune; I came to hear my own, and you have told me nothing of it."
"Your fortune is yet doubtful; when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness; that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it carefully on one side for you; I saw her do it; it depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up; but whether you will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug."
"Don't keep me long—the fire scorches me."
I knelt; she did not stoop toward me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair. She began muttering:
"The flame flickers in the eye—the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling—it smiles at my jargon —it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; when it ceases to smile, it is sad—an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid, that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness; it turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin; its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favorable.
"As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives, though, I dare say, it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude; it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature, too, is propitious.
"I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say—'I can live alone, if self-respect and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure, born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.' The forehead declares, 'Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.'
"Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth would fade, and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavor of remorse, were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood—no, nor of brine; my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet—that will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre, leave me; 'the play is played out.'"
Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream still? The old woman's voice had changed. Her accent, her gesture, and all, were familiar to me as my own face in the glass—as the speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again; but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out. Roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand; it was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded, supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and, stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before. Again I looked at the face, which was no longer turned from me; on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.
"Well, Jane, do you know me?" asked the familiar voice.
"Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then—"
"But the string is in a knot—help me."
"Break it, sir."
"There, then—'Off, ye lendings!' " And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise.
"Now, sir, what a strange idea!"
"But well carried out, eh? Don't you think so?"
"With the ladies you must have managed well."
"But not with you."
"You did not act the character of a gypsy with me."
"What character did I act? My own?"
"No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out—or in. You have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir."
"Do you forgive me, Jane?"
"I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; but it was not right."
"Oh, you have been very correct, very careful, very sensible!"
I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of a masquerade I suspected. I knew gypsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides, I had noted her feigned voice—her anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace Poole—that living enigma—that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her; I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.
"Well," said he, "what are you musing about? What does that grave smile signify?"
"Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire, now, I suppose?"
"No; stay a moment, and tell me what the people in the drawing-room, yonder, are doing."
"Discussing the gypsy, I dare say."
"Sit down, sit down! Let me hear what they said about me."
"I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o'clock. 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 grasp; 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 of 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 dare say), 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 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 gayety."
"And Mason?"
"He was laughing too."
"If all these people came in a body and spit 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 among 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 up stairs.
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. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 20 | I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my window-blind. 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 paralyzed. 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 evry. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.
It came out of the third story; 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; 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 story. 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 inclosed 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 emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window, looking out over the silent grounds and silvered fields, and waiting for I know 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, namely, 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 story; 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 the 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 snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarreling. 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 leaned back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognized 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 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 paralyze 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 story, 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 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 inclosed 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 form.
Amid 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 the 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 secresy and sunk 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. 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 gray light edging the window-curtains; dawn was then approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the court-yard; 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 down stairs 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 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 tonight, 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 has 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."
"Impossible to forget this night!"
"It is not impossible. Have some energy, man. You thought you were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now. There!—Carter has done with you, or nearly so. I'll make you decent in a trice. Jane (he turned to me for the first time since his reëntrance), take this key; go down into my dressing-room; open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief; bring them here; and be nimble."
I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, and returned with them.
"Now," said he, "go to the other side of the bed while I order his toilet; but don't leave the room; you may be wanted again."
I retired as directed.
"Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?" inquired Mr. Rochester, presently.
"No, sir; all was very still."
"We shall get you off cannily, Dick; and it will be better both for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waistcoat. Where did you leave your furred cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know, in this d—d cold climate. In your room? Jane, run down to Mr. Mason's room, the one next mine, and fetch a cloak you will see there."
Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle, lined and edged with fur.
"Now I've another errand for you," said my untiring master; "you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there—quick!"
I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.
"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself; on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion, as now, for instance. Jane, a little water."
He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand.
"That will do; now wet the lip of the phial."
I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.
"Drink, Richard; it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so.
"But will it hurt me? is it inflammatory?"
"Drink! drink! drink!"
Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now; he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm.
"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said; "try."
The patient rose.
"Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step out; that's it!"
"I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason.
"I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the back stairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you will see in the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement—to be ready; we are coming; and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem."
It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible; all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded; then I looked carefully round and listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber-windows; little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall inclosing one side of the yard; the carriage-horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.
The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease; they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed.
"Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to the latter, "and keep him at your house till he is quite well. I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?"
"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."
"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind—good-by, Dick."
"Fairfax—"
"Well, what is it?"
"Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be; let her—" He stopped and burst into tears.
"I do my best; and have done it, and will do it," was the answer. He shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.
"Yet would to God there was an end of all this!" added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates. This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air toward a door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call "Jane!" He had opened the portal, and stood at it, waiting for me.
"Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said; "that house is a mere dungeon; don't you feel it so?"
"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir."
"The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and you see it through a charmed medium; you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now here (he pointed to the leafy inclosure we had entered) all is real, sweet, and pure."
He strayed down a walk edged with box; with apple-trees, pear-trees, and cherry-trees on one side, and a border on the other, full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southern-wood, sweet-brier, and various fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them; the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.
"Jane, will you have a flower?"
He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.
"Thank you, sir."
"Do you like the sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds, which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid and balmy atmosphere?"
"I do, very much."
"You have passed a strange night, Jane."
"Yes, sir."
"And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?"
"I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room."
"But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket; I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb, so near a wolf's den, unguarded; you were safe."
"Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?"
"Oh, yes! don't trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your thoughts."
"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays."
"Never fear—I will take care of myself."
"Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?"
"I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England; nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day."
"But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him; he will never set you at defiance, or wilfully injure you."
"Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet forever of happiness."
"Tell him to be cautious, sir; let him know what you fear, and show him how to avert the danger."
He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him.
"If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him orders in this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me, Richard'; for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are my little friend, are you not?"
"I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right."
"Precisely; I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me—working for me, and with me, in as you characteristically say, 'all that is right'; for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale, and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible; I cannot do it, because it is wrong,' and would become immutable as a fixed star. Well, you, too, have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once."
"If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, you are very safe."
"God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbor; sit down."
The arbor was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me; but I stood before him.
"Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong?"
I answered him by assuming it; to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.
"Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones' breakfast out of the thorn-field, and the early bees do their first spell of work—I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavor to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying."
"No, sir; I am content."
"Well, then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a girl well-reared and disciplined, but a wild boy, indulged from childhood upward; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a crime, I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law; my word is error. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief; unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life; your sun at noon darkens in the eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory; you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile; happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment; you make a new acquaintance—how, or where, no matter; you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates; you feel better days come back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom—a mere conventional impediment, which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?"
He paused for an answer; and what was I to say? Oh for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.
Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:
"Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant man, justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him forever, this gentle, gracious, genial stranger; thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?"
"Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness; if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend, and solace to heal."
"But the instrument—the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure, in—"
He paused; the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispersto catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes—so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy speaker; he was looking eagerly at me.
"Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic—"you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram; don't you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?"
He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he came back he was humming a tune.
"Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with your vigils; don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?"
"Curse you? No, sir."
"Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?"
"Whenever I can be useful, sir."
"For instance, the night before I am married? I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one; for now you have seen her and know her."
"Yes, sir."
"She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?"
"Yes, sir."
"A strapper—a real strapper, Jane; big, brown and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! There's Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket."
As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying, cheeringly, "Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise—I rose at four to see him off." |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 21 | Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies, and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives; asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin), whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of nature with man.
When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the death-bed of her little sister.
Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn; or, again, dabbling its hands in running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next—now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.
I did not like this iteration of one idea—this strange recurrence of one image; and I grew nervous as bed-time approached, and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned down stairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman's servant. He was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band.
"I dare say you hardly remember me, miss," he said, rising as I entered; "but my name is Leaven. I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still."
"Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well; you used to give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony. And how is Bessie? You are married to Bessie?"
"Yes, miss—my wife is very hearty, thank you. She brought me another little one about two months since—we have three now—and both mother and child are thriving."
"And are the family well at the house, Robert?"
"I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, miss; they are very badly at present—in great trouble."
"I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at his black dress. He, too, looked down at the crape round his hat, and replied, "Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers, in London."
"Mr. John?"
"Yes."
"And how does his mother bear it?"
"Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap. His life has been very wild; these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking."
"I heard from Bessie he was not doing well."
"Doing well! He could not do worse. He ruined his health and his estate among the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into jail; his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong; the knaves he lived among fooled him beyond anything I ever heard. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago, and wanted missis to give up all to him. Missis refused; her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows! they say he killed himself."
I was silent—the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed:
"Missis had been out of health herself for some time; she had got very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John's death and the manner of it came too suddenly—it brought on a stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather better; she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, 'Bring Jane—fetch Jane Eyre; I want to speak to her.' Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew so restless, and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many times, that, at last, they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday; and if you can get ready, miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow morning."
"Yes, Robert, I shall be ready; it seems to me that I ought to go."
"I think so, too, miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse; but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?"
"Yes, and I will do it now"; and, having directed him to the servants' hall, and recommended him to the care of John's wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.
He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him—yes; she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiard-room I hastened. The click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence. Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party. My errand, however, was one I could not defer; so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram's side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily. Her eyes seemed to demand, "What can the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a low voice, "Mr. Rochester," she made a movement as if tempted to order me away. I remember her appearance at the moment—it was very graceful and very striking. She wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments.
"Does that person want you?" she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the "person" was. He made a curious grimace—one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations—threw down his cue and followed me from the room.
"Well, Jane?" he said, as he rested his back against the school room door, which he had shut.
"If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two."
"What to do? Where to go?"
"To see a sick lady, who has sent for me."
"What sick lady? Where does she live?"
"At Gateshead, in—shire."
"—shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for people to see her at that distance?"
"Her name is Reed, sir—Mrs. Reed."
"Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate."
"It is his widow, sir."
"And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?"
"Mr. Reed was my uncle, my mother's brother."
"The deuce he was! You never told me that before; you always said that you had no relations."
"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off."
"Why?"
"Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me."
"But Reed left children! you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead, yesterday—who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty, a season or two ago, in London."
"John Reed is dead, too, sir; he ruined himself and half ruined his family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."
"And what good can you do to her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her; besides, you say she cast you off."
"Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different; I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now."
"How long will you stay?"
"As short a time as possible, sir."
"Promise me only to stay a week—"
"I had better not pass my word; I might be obliged to break it."
"At all events you will come back; you will not be induced under any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?"
"Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well."
"And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone?"
"No, sir; she has sent her coachman."
"A person to be trusted?"
"Yes, sir; he has lived ten years in the family."
Mr. Rochester meditated. "When do you wish to go?"
"Early to-morrow morning, sir."
"Well, you must have money; you can't travel without money, and I dare say you have not much; I have given you no salary yet. How much have you in the world, Jane?" he asked, smiling.
I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. "Five shillings, sir." He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness pleased him. Soon he produced his pocket-book. "Here," said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.
"I don't want change; you know that. Take your wages."
I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said:
"Right, right! Better not give you all now; you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not plenty?"
"Yes, sir, but now you owe me five."
"Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds."
"Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity."
"Matter of business? I'm curious to hear it."
"You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?"
"Yes; what then?"
"In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school; I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it."
"To get her out of my bride's way; who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically. There's sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of it; Adèle, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to—the devil!"
"I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere."
"In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes.
"And old Madam Reed, or the misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?"
"No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favors of them—but I shall advertise."
"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it."
"And so have I, sir," I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. "I could not spare the money on any account."
"Little niggard!" said he, "refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane."
"Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence."
"Just let me look at the cash."
"No, sir; you are not to be trusted."
"Jane!"
"Sir?"
"Promise me one thing."
"I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform."
"Not to advertise; and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I'll find you one in time."
"I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I and Adèle shall be both safe out of the house before your bride enters it."
"Very well! very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow, then?"
"Yes, sir; early."
"Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?"
"No, sir; I must prepare for the journey."
"Then you and I must bid good-by for a little while?"
"I suppose so, sir."
"And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm not quite up to it."
"They say farewell; or any other form they prefer."
"Then say it."
"Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present."
"What must I say?"
"The same, if you like, sir."
"Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?"
"Yes."
"It seems stingy to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else; a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands, for instance; but no, that would not content me either. So you'll do no more than say 'farewell,' Jane?"
"It is enough, sir; as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many."
"Very likely; but it is blank and cool—'farewell.'"
"How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?" I asked myself; "I want to commence my packing." The dinner-bell rung, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable; I saw him no more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.
I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the afternoon of the first of May; I stepped in there before going up to the hall. It was very clean and neat; the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains, the floor was spotless, the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burned clear. Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner.
"Bless you! I knew you would come!" exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered.
"Yes, Bessie," said I, after I had kissed her; "and I trust I am not too late. How is Mrs. Reed? Alive still, I hope."
"Yes, she is alive, and more sensible and collected than she was. The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she will finally recover."
"Has she mentioned me lately?"
"She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come; but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, miss, and then I will go up with you?"
Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him; afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bonnet and having some tea, for she said I looked pale and tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality, and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child.
Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks.
Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old, peremptory tones. I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair; and I smiled and obeyed her as in by-gone days.
She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest; they were precisely of the kind she relished.
In such conversation an hour was soon gone; Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly harborage of Lowood, that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me; my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed, and the flame of resentment extinguished.
"You shall go into the breakfast-room first," said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."
In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst—the very rug he had stood upon still covered the hearth. Glancing at the book-cases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick's British Birds occupying their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not changed, but the living things had altered past recognition.
Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall—almost as tall as Miss Ingram—very thin, too, with a sallow face and severe mien. There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a strait-skirted, black stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This, I felt sure, was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colorless visage.
The other was as certainly Georgiana; but not the Georgiana I remembered—the slim and fairylike girl of eleven. This was a full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as wax-work, with handsome and regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from her sister's—so much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as the other's looked puritanical.
In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother, and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm eye; the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin, perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance, otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.
Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by the name of "Miss Eyre." Eliza's greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her "How d'ye do?" several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone, and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a "quiz," without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.
A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed; as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one, and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.
"How is Mrs. Reed?" I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an unexpected liberty.
"Mrs. Reed? Ah! mamma you mean; she is extremely poorly; I doubt if you can see her tonight."
"If," said I, "you would just step up stairs and tell her I am come, I should be much obliged to you."
Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. "I know she had a particular wish to see me," I added, "and I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary."
"Mamma dislikes being disturbed in an evening," remarked Eliza. I soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessie, who was, I dared say, in the kitchen, and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not tonight. I went, and, having found Bessie and despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance; received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once, that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she was better or dead; as to her daughters' pride or folly, I must put it on one side—make myself independent of it. So I addressed the housekeeper—asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself. I met Bessie on the landing.
"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here; come and let us see if she will know you."
I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I hastened before Bessie and softly opened the door; a shaded light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great four-post bedstead with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, the arm-chair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half expecting to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch, which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out, imp-like, and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leaned over the high-piled pillows.
Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance, and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion; I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries—to be reconciled, and clasp hands in amity.
The well-known face was there, stern, relentless, as ever; there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and kissed her; she looked at me.
"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.
"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"
I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again; I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet; had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated; Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me, so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me—her feeling toward me—was unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye, opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears, that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me good, would give her no generous pleasure, only a sense of mortification.
I felt pain, and then I felt ire, and then I felt a determination to subdue her; to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will. My tears had risen just as in childhood; I ordered them back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head; I sat down and leaned over the pillow.
"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here, and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on."
"Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?"
"Yes."
"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay, till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind; tonight it is too late; and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to say—let me see—"
The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the bed-clothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down; she was at once irritated.
"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast; are you Jane Eyre?"
"I am Jane Eyre."
"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands, and so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiend; no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did not die; but I said she did; I wish she had died!"
"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"
"I had a dislike to her mother, always; for she was my husband's only sister, and a great favorite with him; he opposed the family's disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby, though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it, a sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night long, not screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it, and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own; more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar; the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by a vow to keep the creature. I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse; but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all resemble his father, and I am glad of it; John is like me and like my brothers, he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for money! I have no more money to give him; we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and shut up part of the house, or let it off. I can never submit to do that; yet how are we to get on? Two thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and always loses, poor boy! He is beset by sharpers; John is sunk and degraded, his look is frightful, I feel ashamed for him when I see him."
She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her now," said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.
"Perhaps you had, miss; but she often talks in this way toward night; in the morning she is calmer."
I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed. "There is another thing I wished to say. He threatens me—he continually threatens me with his own death or mine; and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swelled and blackened face. I am come to a strange pass; I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be had?"
Bessie now endeavored to persuade her to take a sedative draught; she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, and sunk into a dozing state. I then left her.
More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary-bird by the hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for occupation or amusement; I had brought my drawing materials with me, and they served me for both.
Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination; a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.
One morning I fell to sketching a face; what sort of a face it was to be I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead, and a square lower outline of visage; that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it; of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes; I had left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well; the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I thought, as I surveyed the effect; "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly—a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness; I was absorbed and content.
"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course I lied; it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that to her; or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that an "ugly man." They both seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I promised to contribute a water-color drawing; this put her at once into good-humor. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation; she had favored me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent in London two seasons ago—of the admiration she had there excited—the attention she had received; and I even got hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on; various soft conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The communications were renewed from day to day; they always ran on the same theme—herself, her loves, and woes. It was strange she never once adverted either to her mother's illness or her brother's death, or the present gloomy state of the family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gayety, and aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed about five minutes each day in her mother's sick room, and no more.
Eliza still spoke little; she had evidently no time to talk. I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She had an alarum to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular portions; and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said "the Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company—no conversation. I believe she was happy in her way; this routine sufficed to her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clock-work regularity.
She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound affliction to her; but she had now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died—and it was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or linger long, she would execute a long-cherished project—seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.
Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common; they never had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers.
Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that her Aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town. "It would be so much better," she said, "if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over." I did not ask what she meant by "all being over," but I suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother, and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus:
"Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength; if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon; you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered—you must have music, dancing, and society—or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task; leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment; you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice—the first and last I shall offer you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer the results of your idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my mother's death, I wash my hands of you; from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in Gateshead church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each other. You need not think that, because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim; I tell you this—if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new." She closed her lips.
"You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade," answered Georgiana. "Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence; and I know your spiteful hatred toward me; I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere; you could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects forever." Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterward. Eliza sat cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious.
True, generous feeling is made small account of by some; but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savorless, for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human degluti tion.
It was a wet and windy afternoon; Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint's-day service at the new church—for in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist; no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers.
I bethought myself to go up stairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there almost unheeded; the very servants paid her but a remittent attention; the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I found the sick room unwatched, as I had expected; no nurse was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows; the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, reärran ged the bed-clothes, gazed a while on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tem pestuously. "One lies there," I thought, "who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit—now struggling to quit its material tenement—flit when at length released?"
In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns; recalled her dying words—her faith—her doctrine of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered tones—still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid death-bed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father's bosom—when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind, "Who is that?"
I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days; was she reviving? I went up to her.
"It is I, Aunt Reed."
"Who—I?" was her answer. "Who are you?" looking at me with surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. "You are quite a stranger to me—where is Bessie?"
"She is at the lodge, aunt."
"Aunt!" she repeated. "Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons; and yet I know you—that face, and the eyes and forehead, are quite familiar to me; you are like—why, you are like Jane Eyre!"
I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity.
"Yet," said she, "I am afraid it is a mistake; my thoughts deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists; besides, in eight years she must be so changed." I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be; and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.
"I am very ill, I know," she said, ere long; "I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die; what we think little of in health burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?"
I assured her we were alone.
"Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child; the other—" She stopped. "After all, it is of no great importance, perhaps," she murmured to herself; "and then I may get better, and to humble myself so to her is painful."
She made an effort to alter her position, but failed; her face changed: she seemed to experience some inward sensation—the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
"Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me; I had better tell her. Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there."
I obeyed her direction. "Read the letter," she said.
It was short, and thus conceived:
Madam
Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is; it is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my endeavors to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.
I am, madam, &c., &c. John Eyre, Madeira.
It was dated three years back.
"Why did I never hear of this?" I asked.
"Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane—the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations, when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind; I felt fear, as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man's voice. Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!"
"Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required, "think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language; I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day."
She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus:—
"I tell you I could not forget it, and I took my revenge; for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead—she had died of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please; write and contradict my assertion—expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my torment; my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit."
"If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness—"
"You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand; how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend."
"My disposition is not so bad as you think; I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now; kiss me, aunt."
I approached my cheek to her lips; she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine; the feeble fingers shrunk from my touch—the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.
"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will," I said at last, "you have my full and free forgiveness; ask now for God's, and be at peace."
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind; living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half an hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity; but she gave none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally. At twelve o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes; nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her; Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's once robust and active frame, rigid and still; her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain; nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing, did it inspire; only a grating anguish for her woes—not my loss—and a sombre, tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.
Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she observed—
"With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age; her life was shortened by trouble." And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant; as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropped a tear. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 22 | Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence; yet a month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London—whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister's interment, and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded quailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labor, and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone; I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part."
At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourn; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.
One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I am obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct. There is some difference between living with such a one as you, and with Georgiana; you perform your own part in life, and burden no one. To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house, near Lisle—a nunnery, you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system; if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to insure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil."
I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. "The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought; "much good may it do you!"
When we parted, she said: "Good-by, cousin Jane Eyre, I wish you well; you have some sense."
I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and, so it suits you, I don't much care."
"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her sister again, I may as well mention here that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion; and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her fortune.
How people feel when they are returning home after an absence, long or short, I did not know. I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead, when a child, after a long walk—to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood—to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings were very pleasant or desirable; no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.
My journey seemed tedious—very tedious; fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and discolored face, and heard her strangely altered voice; I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana. I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analyzed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of—scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn. Laid down on my traveller's bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.
I was going back to Thornfield; but how long was I to stay there? Not long—of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence. The party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage. She said, the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. "You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment; "I don't doubt it."
The question followed, "Where was I to go?" I dreamed of Miss Ingram all the night. In a vivid morning dream, I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded, smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me.
I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return, for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my box in the hostler's care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield; a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.
It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft. The hay-makers were at work all along the road, and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future—its blue, where blue was visible, was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm; no watery gleam chilled it; it seemed as if there was a fire lighted—an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapor—and out of apertures shone a golden redness.
I felt glad as the road shortened before me—so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant, and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. "Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," said I; "and little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to see you; but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."
But what is so headstrong as youth—what so blind as inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added—"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may; but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him forever!" And then I strangled a new-born agony—a deformed thing which I could not persuade myself to own and rear—and ran on.
They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows; or, rather, the laborers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! but I have no time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I pass a tall brier, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see—Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and pencil in his hand. He is writing.
Well, he is not a ghost—yet every nerve I have is unstrung; for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir; I need not make an absolute fool of myself; I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways, for he has seen me.
"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil; "there you are! Come on, if you please."
I suppose I do come on, though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely cognizant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face, which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil—it is down; I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure.
"And this is Jane Eyre! Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes; just one of your tricks—not to send for a carriage, and come clattering over street and road, like a common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?"
"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."
"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead—and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf! but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! truant!" he added, when he had paused an instant, "absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"
I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him; but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so, at least, I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last words were balm. They seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home—would that it were my home!
He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired soon if he had not been to London.
"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second sight."
"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."
"And did she inform you what I went to do?"
"Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."
"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you are, can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"
"It would be past the power of magic, sir!" and, in thought, I added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed; to such you are handsome enough, or, rather, your sternness has a power beyond beauty."
Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible; in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response, but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for common purposes; it was the real sunshine of feeling—he shed it over me now.
"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile; "go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's threshold."
All I had now to do was to obey him in silence; no need for me to colloquize further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast—a force turned me round; I said—or something in me said for me, and in spite of me—
"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you; and wherever you are is my home—my only home."
I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by our fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.
I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future; I stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief. When tea was over, and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was "prête à croquer sa petite maman Anglaise"—I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.
A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thorn field Hall. Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided; her answer was always in the negative. Once, she said, she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester, as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he had answered her only by a joke, and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.
One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and forward—no visits to Ingram Park. To be sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive—that the match was broken off—that rumor had been mistaken—that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sunk into inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presence—never been kinder to me when there—and, alas! never had I loved him so well. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 23 | A splendid midsummer shone over England; skies so pure, suns so radiant, as were then seen in long succession, seldom favor, even singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the south, like a flock of glorious passenger-birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply-tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.
On midsummer eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay-lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her I sought the garden.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four. "Day its fervid fires had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of clouds—spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace-flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm of fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary star; soon it would boast the moon, but she was yet beneath the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement, but a subtile, well-known scent—that of a cigar—stole from some window. I saw the library casement open a hand-breadth; I knew I might be watched thence, so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like. It was full of trees; it bloomed with flowers. A very high wall shut it out from the court, on one-side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence, its sole separation from lonely fields. A winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honeydew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade forever. But in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the inclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon casts on this more open quarter, my step is stayed—not by sound, nor by sight; but once more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet-brier and southern-wood, jasmine, pink, and rose, have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense. This new scent is neither of shrub nor flower. It is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I look round, and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases. I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay long; he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit here he will never see me.
But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden—now taking a ripe cherry from the wall—now stooping toward a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's feet; he sees it, and bends to examine it.
"Now he has his back toward me," thought I, "and he is occupied, too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed."
I trod on an edging of turf, that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not betray me; he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. "I shall get by very well," I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, without turning, "Jane, come and look at this fellow."
I had made no noise—he had not eyes behind—could his shadow feel? I started at first, and then I approached him.
"Look at his wings," said he; "he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in England. There! he is flown."
The moth roamed away; I was sheepishly retreating also, but Mr. Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket he said—
"Turn back; on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise."
It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed, and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion; the evil—if evil existent or perspective there was—seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet.
"Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the laurel-walk, and slowly strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, "Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"
"Yes, sir."
"You must have become in some degree attached to the house—you, who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of adhesiveness?"
"I am attached to it, indeed."
"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adèle, too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?"
"Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both."
"And would be sorry to part with them?"
"Yes."
"Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events in this life," he continued presently; "no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired."
"Must I move on, sir?" I asked. "Must I leave Thornfield?"
"I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet; but I believe, indeed, you must."
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 tonight."
"Then you are going to be married, sir?"
"Ex-act-ly—precise-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 Rumor, 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 apologize! 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 motherin-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."
"Not the voyage, but the distance; and then the sea is a barrier—"
"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 avoiding 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 at 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 an hour 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 tonight, 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 full.
"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 snapped; 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 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 forever. 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, inclosing 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 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 rumor to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was 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 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 leaped 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 lighted. 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 up stairs. "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. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 24 | As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and promise.
While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain; there was hope in its aspect and life in its color; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look, but I was sure I might lift my face to his now and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on; it seemed no attire had ever so well become me, because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood.
I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night, and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A beggar-woman and her little boy, pale, ragged objects both, were coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to have in my purse, some three or four shillings; good or bad they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither birds sung, but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart.
Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad countenance, and saying, gravely, "Miss Eyre, will you come to breakfast?" During the meal she was quiet and cool, but I could not undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened up stairs. I met Adèle leaving the schoolroom.
"Where are you going? It is time for lessons."
"Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery."
"Where is he?"
"In there," pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and there he stood.
"Come, and bid me good-morning," said he. I gladly advanced, and it was not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural; it seemed genial to be so well loved, so caressed, by him.
"Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty," said he; "truly pretty this morning. Is this my pale little elf? Is this my mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl, with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?" (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake, for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)
"It is Jane Eyre, sir."
"Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added; "in four weeks, Janet, not a day more. Do you hear that?"
I did, and I could not quite comprehend it; it made me giddy. The feeling the announcement sent through me was something stronger than was consistent with joy, something that smote and stunned; it was, I think, almost fear.
"You blushed, and now you are white, Jane; what is that for?"
"Because you gave me a new name—Jane Rochester; and it seems so strange."
"Yes, Mrs. Rochester," said he; "young Mrs. Rochester; Fairfax Rochester's girl-bride."
"It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species; to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale, a daydream."
"Which I can and will realize. I shall begin to-day. This morning I wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his keeping, heir-looms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope to pour them into your lap; for every privilege, every attention, shall be yours, that I would accord to a peer's daughter, if about to marry her."
"Oh, sir! never mind jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange; I would rather not have them."
"I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on your forehead, which it will become; for nature, at least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy like fingers with rings."
"No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in another strain. Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain, Quakerish governess."
"You are a beauty, in my eyes; and a beauty just after the desire of my own heart, delicate and aerial."
"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir—or, you are sneering. For God's sake, don't be ironical!"
"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted; because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. "I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair, and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil."
"And then you won't know me, sir, and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket—a jay in borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly—far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me."
He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my depre cation. "This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we should be married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun; to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modem record; she shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others."
"Shall I travel? and with you, sir?"
"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples; at Florence, Venice, and Vienna; all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you; wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also. Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad, with disgust, hate, and rage as my companions; now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with a very angel as my comforter."
I laughed at him as he said this. "I am not an angel," I asserted; "and I will not be one till I die; I will be myself, Mr. Rochester; you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me, for you will not get it any more than I shall get it of you, which I do not at all anticipate."
"What do you anticipate of me?"
"For a little while you will, perhaps, be as you are now, a very little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you; but when you get well used to me, you will, perhaps, like me again, Like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband's ardor extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to become quite distasteful to my dear master."
"Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again and yet again; and I will make you confess I do not only like, but love you—with truth, fervor, constancy."
"Yet, are you not capricious, sir?"
"To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and, perhaps, imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper; but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am ever tender and true."
"Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love such a one?"
"I love it now."
"But before me; if I, indeed, in any respect come up to that difficult standard?"
"I never met your likeness, Jane; you please me, and you master me—you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?"
"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charm ers—"
"You were, you little, elfish—"
"Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married, they would, no doubt, by their severity as husbands, have made up for their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favor it does not suit your convenience or pleasure to grant."
"Ask me something now, Janet—the least thing; I desire to be entreated—"
"Indeed, I will, sir; I have my petition all ready."
"Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of me."
"Not at all, sir; I ask only this; don't send for the jewels, and don't crown me with roses; you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket-handkerchief you have there."
"I might as well 'gild refined gold.' I know it; your request is granted, then—for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift to be withdrawn; try again."
"Well, then, sir; have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is much piqued on one point."
He looked disturbed. "What? what?" he said, hastily. "Curiosity is a dangerous petitioner; it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every request—"
"But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir."
"Utter it, Jane; but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate."
"Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your confidence, if you admit me to your heart?"
"You are welcome to all of my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but, for God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for poison—don't turn out a downright Eve on my hands!"
"Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you like to be conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don't you think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax, and entreat—even cry and be sulky, if necessary—for the sake of a mere essay of my power?"
"I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game is up."
"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles, what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, 'a blue-piled thunder-loft.' That will be your married look, sir, I suppose?"
"If that will be your married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But what had you to ask, thing?—out with it."
"There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal better than flattery. I had rather be a thing than an angel. This is what I have to ask: Why did you take such pains to make me believe you wished to marry Miss Ingram?"
"Is that all? Thank God, it is no worse!" And now he unknit his black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if well pleased at seeing a danger averted. "I think I may confess," he continued, "even although I should make you a little indignant, Jane—and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by-the-by, it was you who made me the offer."
"Of course I did. But to the point, if you please, sir—Miss Ingram?"
"Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end."
"Excellent! Now you are small—not one whit bigger than the end of my little finger. It was a burning shame, and a scandalous disgrace, to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's feelings, sir?"
"Her feelings are concentrated in one—pride; and that needs humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?"
"Never mind, Mr. Rochester; it is in no way interesting to you to know that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel forsaken and deserted?"
"Impossible!—when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me; the idea of my insolvency cooled, or, rather, extinguished, her flame in a moment."
"You have a curious designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your principles on some points are eccentric."
"My principles were never trained, Jane; they may have grown a little awry for want of attention."
"Once again, seriously. May I enjoy the great good that has been vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?"
"That you may, my good little girl; there is not another being in the world has the same pure love for me as yourself—for I lay that pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection."
I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very much—more than I could trust myself to say—more than words had power to express.
"Ask something more," he said, presently; "it is my delight to be entreated, and to yield."
I was again ready with my request. "Communicate your intentions to Mrs. Fairfax, sir; she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman."
"Go to your room, and put on your bonnet," he replied. "I mean you to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did she think, Janet, you had given the world for love and considered it well lost?"
"I believe she thought I had forgotten my station; and you yours, sir."
"Station! station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter. Go."
I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax's parlor, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading her morning portion of Scripture—the lesson for the day; her Bible lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now forgotten; her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind, stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself; she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the table.
"I feel so astonished," she began, "I hardly know what to say to you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone, and fancy things that have never happened. It has seemed to me more than once, when I have been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by name, Alice, as he used to do. Now can you tell me whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don't laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month you would be his wife."
"He has said the same thing to me," I replied.
"He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?"
"Yes."
She looked at me bewildered.
"I could never have thought it. He is a proud man; all the Rochesters were proud; and his father at least liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?"
"He tells me so."
She surveyed my whole person; in her eyes I read that they had found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.
"It passes me!" she continued; "but no doubt it is true, since you say so. How it will answer I cannot tell; I really don't know. Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your father."
"No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!" exclaimed I, nettled; "he is nothing like my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at five-and-twenty."
"Is it really for love he is going to marry you?" she asked.
I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my eyes.
"I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the widow, "but you are so young and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that 'all is not gold that glitters'; and in this case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect."
"Why? am I a monster?" I said; "is it impossible that Mr. Rochester should have a sincere affection for me?"
"No, you are very well, and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I dare say, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your guard; but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere, nor the master either; and then, at twelve o'clock, saw you come in with him."
"Well, never mind that now," I interrupted, impatiently; "it is enough that all was right."
"I hope all will be right in the end," she said; "but, believe me, you cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance; distrust yourself as well as him.
Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses."
I was growing truly irritated; happily, Adèle ran in.
"Let me go—let me go to Millcote, too!" she cried. "Mr. Rochester won't, though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg him to let me go, mademoiselle."
"That I will, Adèle;" and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready; they were bringing it round to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following him backward and forward.
"Adèle may accompany us, may she not, sir?"
"I told her no. I'll have no brats! I'll have only you."
"Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please; it would be better."
"Not it—she will be a restraint."
He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs. Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts, were upon me; something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked at my face.
"What is the matter?" he asked; "all the sunshine is gone. Do you really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?"
"I would far rather she went, sir."
"Then off for your bonnet, and back, like a flash of lightning!" cried he to Adèle.
She obeyed him with what speed she might.
"After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter much," said he, "when I mean shortly to claim you, your thoughts, conversation, and company, for life."
Adèle, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession; she was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbor was too restrictive; to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.
"Let her come to me," I entreated; "she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir; there is plenty of room on this side."
He handed her over as if she had been a lap-dog; "I'll send her to school yet," he said, but now he was smiling.
Adèle heard him, and asked if she was to go to school "sans mademoiselle?"
"Yes," he replied, "absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me."
"She will have nothing to eat—you will starve her," observed Adèle.
"I shall gather manna for her morning and night; the plains and hill-sides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adèle."
"She will want to warm herself; what will she do for a fire?"
"Fire rises out of the lunar mountains; when she is cold, I'll carry her up to a peak and lay her down on the edge of a crater."
"Oh, qu'elle y sera mal—peu comfortable! And her clothes, they will wear out; how can she get new ones?"
Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. "Hem!" said he. "What would you do, Adèle? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow."
"She is far better as she is," concluded Adèle, after musing some time; "besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you."
"She has consented—she has pledged her word."
"But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon—it is all air, and neither you nor she can fly."
"Adèle, look at that field." We were now outside Thornfield gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was well laid by the thunder-storm, and where the low hedges and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green, and rain-refreshed.
"In that field, Adèle, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight since—the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard meadows; and as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had for happy days to come; I was writing away very fast, though daylight was fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to this effect:
"It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to make me happy; I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely place—such as the moon, for instance—and it nodded its head towards her horn, rising over Hay-hill; it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to go; but reminded it, as you did me, that I had no wings to fly.
"'Oh,' returned the fairy, 'that does not signify! Here is a talisman will remove all difficulties;' and she held out a pretty gold ring. 'Put it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own heaven yonder.' She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adèle, is in my breeches pocket under the disguise of a sovereign; but I mean soon to change it to a ring again."
"But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the fairy; you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon—!"
"Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism; denominating Mr. Rochester "un vrai menteur," and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his "Contes de fée," and that "du reste, il n'y avait pas de fees et quand même il y en avait;" she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon.
The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse; there I was ordered to choose half a dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged leave to defer it; no—it should be gone through with now. By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to two; these, however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores; he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin. I told him, in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at once; I should certainly never venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty (for he was stubborn as a stone) I persuaded him to make an exchange in favor of a sober black satin and pearl-gray silk. "It might pass for the present," he said; but he would yet see me "glittering like a parterre."
Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of the jeweller's shop; the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we reentered the carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what in the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten—the letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed; his intention to adopt me and make me his testatrix. "It would, indeed, be a relief," I thought, "if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danaë with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell my Uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom; if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now." And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I ventured once more to meet my master's and lover's eye; which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had enriched; I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him, red with the passionate pressure.
"You need not look in that way," I said; "if you do, I'll wear nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be married in this lilac gingham—you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of the pearl-gray silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the black satin."
He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. "Oh, it is rich to see and hear her!" he exclaimed. "Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole seraglio, gazelle eyes, houriforms and all!"
The eastern allusion bit me again; "I'll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio," I said; "so don't consider me an equivalent for one; if you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul, without delay; and lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here."
"And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?"
"I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates among the rest. I'll get admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered among our hands; nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred."
"I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane."
"I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when released, would be to violate its conditions."
"Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms—what will they be?"
"I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do you remember what you said of Céline Varens?—of the diamonds, the cashmeres, you gave her? I will not be your English Céline Varens. I shall continue to act as Adèle's governess; by that, I shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides. I'll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing, but—"
"Well, but what?"
"Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be quit."
"Well, for cool native impudence, and pure innate pride, you haven't your equal," said he. "We are now approaching Thorn field. Will it please you to dine with me to-day?" he asked, as we reentered the gates.
"No, thank you, sir."
"And what for, 'no, thank you?' if one may inquire."
"I never have dined with you, sir; and I see no reason why I should now; till—"
"Till what? You delight in half phrases."
"Till I can't help it."
"Do you suppose I eat like an ogre, or a ghoul, that you dread being the companion of my repast?"
"I have formed no suppositions on the subject, sir; but I want to go on as usual for another month."
"You will give up your governessing slavery at once."
"Indeed! begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have been accustomed to do; you may send for me in the evening, when you feel disposed to see me, and I'll come then; but at no other time."
"I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all this, 'pour me donner une contenance,' as Adèle would say; and unfortunately, I have neither my cigar-case nor my snuff-box. But listen—whisper—it is your time, now, little tyrant, but it will be mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I'll just—figuratively speaking—attach you to a chain like this" (touching his watch-guard). "Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne."
He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage; and while he afterward lifted out Adèle, I entered the house and made good my retreat up stairs.
He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in a tête-à-tête conversation: I remembered his fine voice; I knew he liked to sing—good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, begun to lower her blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love of Heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present.
"Did I like his voice?" he asked.
"Very much." I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe and stimulate it.
"Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment."
"Very well, sir; I will try."
I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated "a little bungler." Being pushed unceremoniously to one side—which was precisely what I wished—he usurped my place, and proceeded to accompany himself; for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the window-recess; and while I sat there and looked out on the still trees and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following strain:
The truest love that ever heart
Felt at its kindled core
Did through each vein, in quickened start,
The tide of being pour.
Her coming was my hope each day,
Her parting was my pain;
The chance that did her steps delay
Was ice in every vein
I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
As blind as eagerly.
But wide as pathless was the space
That lay our lives between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
Of ocean-surges green.
And haunted as a robber path
Through wilderness or wood,
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.
I dangers dared; I hinderance scorned;
I omens did defy;
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,
I passed impetuous by.
On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
I flew as in a dream;
Far glorious rose upon my sight
That child of Shower and Gleam.
Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
Shines that soft solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
Disasters gather nigh:
I care not in this moment sweet,
Though all I have rushed o'er
Should come, on pinion strong and fleet,
Proclaiming vengeance sore:
Though haughty Hate should strike me down,
Right, bar approach to me,
And grinding Might, with furious frown,
Swear endless enmity.
My love has placed her little hand
With noble faith in mine,
And vowed that wedlock's sacred hand
Our natures shall entwine.
My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,
With me to live—to die;
I have at last my nameless bliss:
As I love—loved am I!
He rose and came toward me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every lineament. I quailed momentarily—then I rallied. Soft scene, daring demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both; a weapon of defence must be prepared—I whetted my tongue; as he reached me, I asked with asperity, "whom he was going to marry now?"
"That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane."
"Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one; he had talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with him—he might depend on that."
"Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him! Death was not for such as I."
"Indeed it was; I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had; but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee."
"Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss?"
"No, I would rather be excused."
Here I heard myself apostrophized as a "hard little thing"; and it was added, "Any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise."
I assured him I was naturally hard—very flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed; he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it.
"Would I be quiet, and talk rationally?"
"I would be quiet if he liked; and as to talking rationally, I flattered myself I was doing that now."
He fretted, pished and pshawed. "Very good," I thought; "you may fume and fidget as you please, but this is the best plan to pursue with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a bathos of sentiment; and with this needle of repartee I'll keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual advantage."
From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I got up, and saying, "I wish you good-night, sir," in my natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away.
The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure, rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently entertained; and that a lamblike submission and turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste, less.
In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled-for; it was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as "love" and "darling" on his lips: the best words at my service were "provoking puppet," "malicious elf," "sprite," "changeling," etc. For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favors to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. "I can keep you in reasonable check now," I reflected; "and I don't doubt to be able to do it hereafter; if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised."
Yet, after all, my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole world, and more than the world—almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for his creature, of whom I had made an idol. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 25 | The month of courtship had wasted; its very last hours were being numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced—the bridal day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I, at least, had nothing more to do. There were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this time, they will be far on their road to London; and so should I (D.V.), or, rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on; they lay, four little squares, on the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, "Mrs. Rochester, Hotel, London," on each; I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! she did not exist; she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o'clock A.M., and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive, before I assigned to her all that property. It was enough that, in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet; for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment—the pearl-colored robe, the vapory veil, pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained, which, at this evening hour—nine o'clock—gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. "I will leave you by yourself, white dream," I said; "I am feverish; I hear the wind blowing, I will go out of doors and feel it."
It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change—the new life which was to commence to-morrow; both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds, but a third cause influenced my mind more than they.
I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened which I could not comprehend. No one knew of or had seen the event but myself; it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester, that night, was absent from home, nor was he yet returned. Business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed, thirty miles off—business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I waited now his return, eager to disburden my mind, and to seek of him the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence.
I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar. The trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an hour, so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads northward. The clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on mass. No glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day.
It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel-walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut-tree. It stood up, black and riven; the trunk, split down the centre, gaped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below, though community of vitality was destroyed—the sap could flow no more; their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth; as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree—a ruin—but an entire ruin.
"You did right to hold fast to each other," I said, as if the monster splinters were living things and could hear me. "I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots. You will never have green leaves more—never more see birds making nests, and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you; but you are not desolate; each of you has a comrade to sympathize with him in his decay." As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast. She seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away, over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail. It was sad to listen to, and I ran off again.
Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathering up the apples with which the grass round the tree-roots was thickly strewed. Then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe. I carried them into the house and put them away in the storeroom. Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lighted; for, though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in; yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burned well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner; I wheeled the table near it; I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house. A little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten.
"How late it grows!" I said. "I will run down to the gates; it is moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense."
The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road, as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all still and solitary; save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals, as the moon looked out, it was but a long, pale line, unvaried by one moving speck.
A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked—a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud; the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.
"I wish he would come! I wish he would come!" I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark; what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event of last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of disaster; I feared my hopes were too bright to be realized; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline.
"Well, I cannot return to the house," I thought. "I cannot sit by the fireside while he is abroad in inclement weather. Better tire my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him."
I set out. I walked fast, but not far. Ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs. A horseman came on, full gallop—a dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he. Here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me, for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright. He took his hat off and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him.
"There!" he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the saddle. "You can't do without me, that is evident. Step on my boot-toe; give me both hands; mount!"
I obeyed. Joy made me agile; I sprung up before him. A hearty kissing I got for welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, "But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour? Is there anything wrong?"
"No; but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind."
"Rain and wind indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid. Pull my cloak round you; but I think you are feverish, Jane; both your cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?"
"Nothing, now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy."
"Then you have been both?"
"Rather—but I'll tell you all about it by and by, sir; and I dare say you will only laugh at me for my pains."
"I'll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not; my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a brier-rose? I could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms; you wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd; did you, Jane?"
"I wanted you; but don't boast. Here we are at Thornfield; now let me get down."
He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse and he followed me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, and then to return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the stair-case, to extort a promise that I would not be long; nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I found him at supper.
"Take a seat, and bear me company, Jane; please God, it is the last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time."
I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat.
"Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane? Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?"
"I cannot see my prospects clearly tonight, sir; and I hardly know what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal."
"Except me; I am substantial enough—touch me."
"You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all; you are a mere dream."
He held out his hand, laughing. "Is that a dream?" said he, placing it close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as well as a long, strong arm.
"Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream," said I, as I put it down from before my face. "Sir, have you finished supper?"
"Yes, Jane."
I rung the bell, and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master's knee.
"It is near midnight," I said.
"Yes; but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before my wedding."
"I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least; I have no wish to go to bed."
"Are all your arrangements complete?"
"All, sir."
"And on my part, likewise," he returned. "I have settled everything; and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half an hour after our return from church."
"Very well, sir."
"With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word, 'very well,' Jane! What a bright spot of color you have on each cheek! and how strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?"
"I believe I am."
"Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel."
"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this present hour would never end; who knows with what fate the next may come charged?"
"This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited or over-fatigued."
"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"
"Calm? no; but happy—to the heart's core."
I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face; it was ardent and flushed.
"Give me your confidence, Jane," he said; "relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?—that I shall not prove a good husband?"
"It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."
"Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter? of the life into which you are passing?"
"No."
"You puzzle me, Jane; your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I want an explanation."
"Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?"
"I was; I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had happened in my absence—nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk? Your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?"
"No, sir." It struck twelve—I waited till the time-piece had concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I proceeded.
"All day, yesterday, I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera; I think it a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don't caress me now—let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and mine; it was a fine day, if you recollect—the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before me—your life, sir—an existence more expansive and stirring than my own; as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel. I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary wilderness; for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy; I went in. Sophie called me up stairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present—the veil which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London; resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to mask your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet."
"How well you read me, you witch!" interposed Mr. Rochester; "but what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?"
"No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found nothing save Fairfax Rochester's pride; and that did not scare me, because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind rose; it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now, wild and high, but 'with a sullen, moaning sound,' far more eerie. I wished you were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed I could not sleep—a sense of anxious excitement distressed me. The gale, still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful undersound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful, at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night. I continued also the wish to be with you and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child; a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop, but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew further and further every moment."
"And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet; yes, I will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. Those words did not die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft; a thought too solemn, perhaps, but sweet as music, 'I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because I love you.' Do you love me, Jane? repeat it."
"I do, sir, I do, with my whole heart."
"Well," he said, after some minutes' silence, "it is strange; but that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy; and because your upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion; it is too much as if some spirit were near me. Look wicked, Jane, as you know well how to look; coin one of your wild, sly, provoking smiles; tell me you hate me—tease me, vex me; do anything but move me; I would rather be incensed than saddened."
"I will tease you and vex you to your heart's content when I have finished my tale; but hear me to the end."
"I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source of your melancholy in a dream!"
I shook my head. "What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on."
The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his manner, surprised me; but I proceeded.
"I dreamed another dream, sir; that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass-grown inclosure within; here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little child; I might not lay it down anywhere; however tired were my arms—however much its weight impeded my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years, and for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic, perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top; the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap; you turned an angle of the road; I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee; I lost my balance, fell, and woke."
"Now, Jane, that is all."
"All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought—oh, it is daylight! But I was mistaken; it was only candle-light. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a light on the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there. I asked, 'Sophie, what are you doing?' No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. 'Sophie! Sophie!' I again cried; and still it was silent. I had risen up in bed, I bent forward; first surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax; it was not—no, I was sure of it, and am still—it was not even that strange woman, Grace Poole."
"It must have been one of them," interrupted my master.
"No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield Hall before; the height, the contour, were new to me."
"Describe it, Jane."
"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on; it was white and straight, but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."
"Did you see her face?"
"Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark, oblong glass."
"And how were they?"
"Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discolored face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"
"Ghosts are usually pale, Jane."
"This, sir, was purple; the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed; the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?"
"You may."
"Of the foul German spectre, the Vampyre."
"Ah! What did it do?"
"Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and, flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."
"Afterward?"
"It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at my bedside the figure stopped; the fiery eye glared upon me—she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her wild visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness; for the second time in my life—only the second time—I became insensible from terror."
"Who was with you when you revived?"
"No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled, I was not ill, and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now, sir, tell who and what that woman was?"
"The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I must be careful of you, my treasure; nerves like yours were not made for rough handling."
"Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real; the transaction actually took place."
"And your previous dreams, were they real, too? Is Thornfield Hall a ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you without a tear, without a kiss, without a word?"
"Not yet."
"Am I about to do it? Why the day has already commenced which is to bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors, I guarantee that."
"Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such; I wish it more now than ever, since even you cannot explain to me the mystery of that awful visitant."
"And, since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal."
"But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there, on the carpet, I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis—the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!"
I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms around me: "Thank God!" he exclaimed, "that, if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think what might have happened!"
He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him I could scarcely pant. After some minutes' silence, he continued cheerily,
"Now, Janet, I'll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half reality; a woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was, must have been, Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself; from all you know, you have reason so to call her. What did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious, as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own; the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were fragments of imagination, results of nightmare; the spiteful tearing of the veil was real, and it is like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house; when we have been married a year and a day I will tell you, but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?"
I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one; satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavored to appear so; relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him.
"Does not Sophie sleep with Adèle in the nursery?" he asked, as I lighted my candle.
"Yes, sir."
"And there is room enough in Adèle's little bed for you. You must share it with her tonight, Jane; it is no wonder that the incident you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep alone; promise me to go to the nursery."
"I shall be very glad to do so, sir."
"And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go up stairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good time to-morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts; chase dull care away, Janet. Don't you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is no more beating of rain against the window-panes; look here (he lifted up the curtain), it is a lovely night!"
It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully.
"Well," said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, "how is my Janet now?"
"The night is serene, sir; and so am I."
"And you will not dream of separation and sorrow tonight, but of happy love and blissful union."
This prediction was but half fulfilled; I did not indeed dream of sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy, for I never slept at all. With little Adèle in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood, so tranquil, so passionless, so innocent, and waited for the coming day; all my life was awake and astir in my frame; and as soon as the sun rose, I rose too. I remember Adèle clung to me as I left her; I remember I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck, and I cried over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I feared my sobs would break her still sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past life, and he I was now to array myself to meet, the dread, but adored, type of my unknown future day. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 26 | Sophie came at seven to dress me; she was very long indeed in accomplishing her task, so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just fastening my veil (the plain square of blond, after all) to my hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could.
"Stop!" she cried in French. "Look at yourself in the mirror; you have not taken one peep."
So I turned at the door; I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. "Jane!" called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the stairs by Mr. Rochester.
"Lingerer," he said, "my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry so long!"
He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, pronounced me "fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but the desire of his eyes," and then telling me he would give me but ten minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately-hired servants, a footman, answered it.
"Is John getting the carriage ready?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is the luggage brought down?"
"They are bringing it down now, sir."
"Go you to the church; see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are there; return and tell me."
The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the footman soon returned.
"Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice."
"And the carriage?"
"The horses are harnessing."
"We shall not want it to go to church, but it must be ready the moment we return; all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the coachman in his seat."
"Yes, sir."
"Jane, are you ready?"
I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives, to wait for or marshal; none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was held by a grasp of iron; I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester's face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did—so bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute; or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes.
I know not whether the day was fair or foul: in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth; my heart was with my eyes—and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and resisting.
At the church-yard wicket he stopped; he discovered I was quite out of breath. "Am I cruel in my love?" he said. "Delay an instant; lean on me, Jane."
And now I can recall the picture of the gray old house of God rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers, straying among the low hillocks, and reading the mementos graven on the few mossy headstones. I noticed them because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle door, and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face, from which the blood had, I dare say, momentarily fled; for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the porch.
We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still; two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct; the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs toward us, viewing through the rails the old, time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.
Our place was taken at the communion-rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder; one of the strangers—a gentleman, evidently—was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly toward Mr. Rochester, went on.
"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 toward 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 eyes 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 these low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder—my blood felt their subtile 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 colorless 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 recognize 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 recognizes, if you do not."
"Favor 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."
"At Thornfield Hall!" ejaculated the clergyman. "Impossible! I am an old resident in this neighborhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall."
I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lip, and he muttered—
"No—by God! I took care that none should hear of it—or of her under that name." He mused—for ten minutes he held counsel with himself; he formed his resolve, and announced it—
"Enough—all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the clerk), leave the church; there will be no wedding to-day." The man obeyed.
Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: "Bigamy is an ugly word! I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me—perhaps the last. I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve, no doubt, the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up! what this lawyer and his client say is true; I have been married; and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I dare say you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister; some, my cast-off mistress; I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago—Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick! never fear me! I'd almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family—idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard! as I found out after I had wed the daughter; for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner—pure, wise, modest! You can fancy that I was a happy man! I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason—I invite you all to come up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole's patient, and my wife! You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human. This girl," he continued, looking at me, "knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret. She thought all was fair and legal; and never dreamed she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and em bruted partner! Come, all of you, follow!"
Still holding me fast, he left the church; the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.
"Take it back to the coach-house, John," said Mr. Rochester, coolly; "it will not be wanted to-day."
At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adèle, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us.
"To the right-about—every soul!" cried the master. "Away with your congratulations! Who wants them? Not I! They are fifteen years too late!"
He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the first stair-case, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third story. The low black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed, and its pictorial cabinet.
"You know this place, Mason," said our guide. "She bit and stabbed you here."
He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door. This, too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burned a fire, guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a sauce-pan. In the deep shade, at the further end of the room, a figure ran backward and forward. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell. It grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal; but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.
"Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole," said Mr. Rochester. "How are you? and how is your charge to-day?"
"We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob; "rather snappish, but not 'rageous."
A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favorable report; the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind feet.
"Ah, sir, she sees you!" exclaimed Grace; "you'd better not stay."
"Only a few moments, Grace; you must allow me a few moments."
"Take care, then, sir! for God's sake, take care!"
The maniac bellowed; she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognized well that purple face—those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.
"Keep out of the way," said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside; "she has no knife now, I suppose? and I'm on my guard."
"One never knows what she has, sir; she is so cunning. It is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft."
"We had better leave her," whispered Mason.
"Go to the devil!" was his brother-in-law's recommendation.
"Ware!" cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him; the lunatic sprung and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek. They struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides. She showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike; he would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms. Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her. With more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amid the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators; he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.
"That is my wife," said he. "Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know. Such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have (laying his hand on my shoulder); this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon. I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the Gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize."
We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as we descended the stair.
"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame; your uncle will be glad to hear it—if, indeed, he should be still living—when Mr. Mason returns to Madeira."
"My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?"
"Mr. Mason does; Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed, as you may suppose, revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick-bed, from which, considering the nature of his disease—decline—and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not too late; as you doubtless must be also. Were I not morally certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?" he inquired of Mr. Mason.
"No, no—let us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he, too, departed.
I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt, that none might intrude, and proceeded—not to weep, not to mourn; I was yet too calm for that—but mechanically to take off the wedding-dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down; I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought; till now I had only heard, seen, moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure; but now I thought.
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 hay-field and corn-field lay a frozen shroud; lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, today 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 subtile 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 baulked; 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, I 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 lifelike 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 sunk into deep mire; I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me." |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 27 | Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the westering sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, "What am I to do?"
But the answer my mind gave—"Leave Thornfield at once"—was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears; I said, I could not bear such words now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my woe," I alleged; "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it."
But, then, a force within me averred that I could do it, and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution; I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and conscience, turned tyrant, held passion by the throat, told her, tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony.
"Let me be torn away, then!" I cried. "Let another help me!"
"No; you shall tear yourself away; none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim; and you the priest, to transfix it."
I rose up suddenly, terror-stricken at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted—at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head swam as I stood erect; I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected, that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down; not even little Adèle had tapped at the door, not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. "Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle; my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself; I fell, but not to the ground; an outstretched arm caught me; I looked up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I have been waiting for you long, and listening; yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob; five minutes' more of that deathlike hush, and I should have forced the lock like a burglar. So, you shun me?—you shut yourself up and grieve alone? I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate; I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast; now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err; you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?
"Well, Jane; not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter—nothing poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.
"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?"
Reader!—I forgave him at the moment, and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and, besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien, I forgave him all; yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart's core.
"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?" ere long he inquired wistfully—wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness; the result rather of weakness than of will.
"Yes, sir."
"Then tell me so roundly and sharply—don't spare me."
"I cannot; I am tired and sick. I want some water." He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh, and, taking me in his arms, carried me down stairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my glazed sight; presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library—sitting in his chair—he was quite near. "If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me," I thought; "then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from Mr. Rochester's. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him—I cannot leave him."
"How are you now, Jane?"
"Much better, sir; I shall be well soon."
"Taste the wine again, Jane."
I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped toward me as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I turned my face away, and put his aside.
"What!—How is this?" he exclaimed, hastily. "Oh, I know! you won't kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled, and my embraces appropriated?"
"At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir."
"Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer for you—because I have a wife already, you would reply. I guess rightly?"
"Yes."
"If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard me as a plotting profligate—a base and low rake, who has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid, and strip you of honor, and rob you of self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing; in the first place, you are faint, still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to abuse and revile me; and, besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene; you are thinking how to act—talking, you consider, is of no use. I know you—I am on my guard."
"Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
"Not in your sense of the word—but in mine you are scheming to destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man—as a married man you will shun me, keep out of my way; just now you have refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me; to live under this roof only as Adèle's governess; if ever I say a friendly word to you—if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will say—'That man had nearly made me his mistress; I must be ice and rock to him'; and ice and rock you will accordingly become."
I cleared and steadied my voice to reply, "All is changed about me, sir; I must change too—there is no doubt of that; and, to avoid fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and associations, there is only one way—Adèle must have a new governess, sir."
"Oh, Adèle will go to school—I have settled that already; nor do I mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of Thornfield Hall—this accursed place—this tent of Achan—this insolent vault offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the open sky—this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adèle never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere—though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge; but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of what I most hate.
"Concealing the madwoman's neighborhood from you, however, was something like covering a child with a cloak, and laying it down near a upas-tree; that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll shut up Thornfield Hall; I'll nail up the front door, and board the lower windows; I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here with my wife, as you term that fearful hag; Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company, and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on—"
"Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady; you speak of her with hate—with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel—she cannot help being mad."
"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again; it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad do you think I should hate you?"
"I do, indeed, sir."
"Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own. In pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken it would be my treasure still; if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a straight waistcoat. Your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me; if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive; I should not shrink from you with disgust, as I did from her. In your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me. But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared for prompt departure; to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its miseries and terrors forever; I have a place to repair to which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome intrusion—even from falsehood and slander."
"And take Adèle with you, sir," I interrupted; "she will be a companion for you."
"What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adèle to school. And what do I want with a child for a companion—and not my own child—a French dancer's bastard. Why do you importune me about her? I say, why do you assign Adèle to me for a companion?"
"You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull—too dull for you."
"Solitude! solitude!" he reiterated, with irritation. "I see I must come to an explanation. I don't know what Sphynx-like expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my solitude. Do you understand?"
I shook my head. It required a degree of courage, excited as he was becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. He looked at me long and hard. I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect.
"Now for the hitch in Jane's character," he said at last, speaking more calmly than, from his look, I had expected him to speak. "The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle—here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson's strength, and break the entanglement like tow!"
He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just before me.
"Jane! will you hear reason?" (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear); "because, if you won't, I'll try violence." His voice was hoarse, his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him. The present—the passing second of time—was all I had in which to control and restrain him. A movement of repulsion, flight, fear, would have sealed my doom—and his. But I was not afraid—not in the least. I felt an inward power—a sense of influence—which supported me. The crisis was perilous, but not without its charm—such as the Indian, perhaps, feels, when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him soothingly:
"Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable."
He sat down; but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been struggling with tears for some time. I had taken great pains to repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and cried heartily.
Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could not while he was in such a passion.
"But I am not angry Jane; I only love you too well. And you had steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes."
His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so, I, in my turn, became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder; but I would not permit it: then he would draw me to him; no.
"Jane! Jane!" he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness, it thrilled along every nerve I had, "you don't love me, then? It was only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I were some toad or ape."
These words cut me; yet what could I do or say? I ought, probably, to have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm where I had wounded.
"I do love you," I said, "more than ever; but I must not show or indulge the feeling; and this is the last time I must express it."
"The last time, Jane? What! do you think you can live with me, and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?"
"No, sir, that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is but one way—but you will be furious if I mention it."
"Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping."
"Mr. Rochester, I must leave you."
"For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair, which is somewhat dishevelled, and bathe your face, which looks feverish?"
"I must leave Adèle and Thornfield; I must part with you for my whole life; I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange scenes!"
"Of course; I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new existence, it is all right; you shall yet be my wife—I am not married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester, both virtually and nominally. I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have in the south of France—a white-walled villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error—to make you my mistress. Why do you shake your head? Jane, you must be reasonable, or, in truth, I shall again become frantic."
His voice and hand quivered; his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed; still I dared to speak.
"Sir, your wife is living; that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself; if I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress; to say otherwise is sophistical—is false."
"Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man—you forget that; I am not long enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and—beware!"
He bared his wrist, and offered it to me. The blood was forsaking his cheek and lips; they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel; to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity—looked for aid to one higher than man; the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.
"I am a fool!" cried Mr. Rochester, suddenly. "I keep telling her I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine, Janet—that I may have the evidence of touch, as well as sight, to prove you are near me—and I will, in a few words, show you the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?"
"Yes, sir; for hours, if you will."
"I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear, or know, that I was not the eldest son of my house—that I had once a brother older than I?"
"I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once."
"And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?"
"I have understood something to that effect."
"Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property together. He could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving me a fair portion; all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Russell. Yet, as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast; he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds; that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money, but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty, and this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram, tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me, because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled—stimulated; my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me; a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act! An agony of inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature. I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candor, nor refinement, in her mind or manners; and I married her—gross, grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might have—but let me remember to whom I am speaking.
"My bride's mother I had never seen; I understood she was dead. The honey-moon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too, a complete dumb idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, while I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my brother, Russell, knew all this, but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me.
"These were vile discoveries; but, except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day, with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself; I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance. I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.
"Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details; some strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman up stairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed; her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprung up fast and rank; they were so strong, only cruelty could check them; and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste.
"My brother in the interval was dead; and at the end of the four years my father died too. I was rich enough now, yet poor to hideous indigence; a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings; for the doctors now discovered that my wife was mad—her excesses had prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don't like my narrative; you look almost sick—shall I defer the rest to another day?"
"No, sir; finish it now; I pity you—I do earnestly pity you."
"Pity, Jane, from some people, is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment, with which your eyes are now almost overflowing—with which your heart is heaving—with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love; its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent—my arms wait to receive her."
"Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?"
"Jane—I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the world I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonor; but I resolved to be clean in my own sight, and to the last I repudiated the contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily; something of her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and, besides, I remembered I had once been her husband—that recollection was then, and it is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her family and my father had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.
"One night I had been awakened by her yells—(since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up); it was a fiery West Indian night, one of the description that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-streams—I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake—black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball—she threw her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language! no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she; though two rooms off, I heard every word—the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries.
"'This life,' said I, at last, 'is hell! this is the air—those are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's burning eternity I have no fear; there is not a future state worse than this present one—let me break away, and go home to God!'
"I said this while I knelt down at and unlocked a trunk which contained a brace of loaded pistols. I meant to shoot myself. I only entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair which had originated the wish and design of self-destruction was past in a second.
"A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement; the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and among its drenched pomegranates and pineapples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me, I reasoned thus, Jane. And now listen; for it was true wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow.
"The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled with living blood—my being longed for renewal—my soul thirsted for a pure draught. I saw hope revive, and felt regeneration possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea, bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:
"'Go,' said Hope, 'and live again in Europe; there it is not known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield; then travel yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like. That woman who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your honor, so blighted your youth—is not your wife; nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require of you, Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion; you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her in safety and comfort; shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave her.'
"I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I added an urgent charge to keep it secret; and very soon, the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself.
"To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third-story room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's den—a goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret; besides, she had lucid intervals of days-sometimes weeks—which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole, from the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may, indeed, have suspected something; but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses—once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days; but on what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles—"
"And what, sir," I asked, while he paused, "did you do when you had settled her here? Where did you go?"
"What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a Will-o'-the-Wisp. Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman, whom I could love; a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield—"
"But you could not marry, sir."
"I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly; and it appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I was burdened."
"Well, sir?"
"When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open your eyes like an eager bird, and make, every now and then, a restless movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and you wanted to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go on, tell me what you mean by your 'Well, sir?' It is a small phrase very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on, through interminable talk; I don't very well know why."
"I mean, what next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?"
"Precisely; and what do you wish to know now?"
"Whether you found any one you liked; whether you asked her to marry you, and what she said."
"I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked her to marry me; but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another; sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of money, and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society; no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman among English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and German Gräfinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form, which announced the realization of my dream; but I was presently undeceived. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me—for the antipodes of the Creole; and I longed vainly. Among them all I found not one whom, had I been ever so free, I—warned as I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings, of incongruous unions—would have asked to marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation—never debauchery; that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian Messalina's attribute; rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.
"Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of mistresses. The first I chose was Céline Varens—another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors; an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara, both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent; I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet, but heavy, mindless, unimpressible; not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favorable opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake; don't you?"
"I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way; first with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course."
"It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of existence; I should never wish to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the next worst thing to buying a slave; both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior; and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Céline, Giacinta, and Clara."
I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference that, if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as—under any pretext—with any justification—through any temptation—to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this conviction; it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial.
"Now, Jane, why don't you say 'Well, sir?' I have not done. You are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses—in a harsh, bitter frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life—corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, I came back to England.
"On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace—no pleasure there. On a stile in Hay-lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it; I had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the arbitress of my life—my genius for good or evil—waited there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go; it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand; and aided I was.
"When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new—a fresh sap and sense—stole into my frame. It was well I had learned that this elf must return to me—that it belonged to my house down below—or I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come home that night, Jane; though probably you were not aware that I thought of you or watched for you. The next day I observed you—myself unseen—for half an hour, while you played with Adèle in the gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my room; the door was ajar; I could both listen and watch. Adèle claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere; but you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you talked to her and amused her a long time. When at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep revery; you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out at the thick falling snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on, and dreamed. I think those day-visions were not dark; there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding; your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth, when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope, up and on to an ideal heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened you; and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet! There was much sense in your smile; it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say—'My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky, and a green flowery Eden, in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.' You ran down stairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation; the weekly house-accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think it was. I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight.
"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual—to me—a perfectly new character, I suspected was yours; I desired to search it deeper, and know it better. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent; you were quaintly dressed—much as you are now. I made you talk; ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet, when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor's face; there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me—I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillized your manner; snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure, at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw; I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance; besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade—the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you—but you did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me—or if you ever thought of me; to find this out, I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed; I saw you had a social heart; it was the silent schoolroom-it was the tedium of your life that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon; your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful, happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time; there was a curious hesitation in your manner; you glanced at me with a slight trouble—a hovering doubt; you did not know what my caprice might be—whether I was going to play the master, and be stern—or the friend, and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom, and light, and bliss, rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart."
"Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I interrupted, furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; for I knew what I must do—and do soon—and all these reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings, only made my work more difficult.
"No, Jane," he returned; "what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?"
I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.
"You see now how the case stands—do you not?" he continued. "After a youth and manhood, passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel; I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely; a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you—and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.
"It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery; you know now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early instilled prejudice, I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly; I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now—opened to you plainly my life of agony—described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence—shown to you, not my resolution (that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity, and to give me yours; Jane—give it me now."
A pause.
"Why are you silent, Jane?"
I was experiencing an ordeal; a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment; full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped; and I must renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty—"Depart!"
"Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—'I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.'"
"Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours."
Another long silence.
"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror—for this still voice was the pant of a lion rising—"Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?"
"I do."
"Jane (bending toward and embracing me), do you mean it now?"
"I do."
"And now?" softly kissing my forehead and cheek.
"I do—" extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.
"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This—this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me."
"It would to obey you."
A wild look raised his brows—crossed his features; he rose, but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support; I shook, I feared—but I resolved.
"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For a wife I have but the maniac up stairs; as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder church-yard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion, and for some hope?"
"Do as I do; trust in God and yourself. Believe in Heaven. Hope to meet again there."
"Then you will not yield?"
"No."
"Then you condemn me to live wretched, and to die accursed?" His voice rose.
"I advise you to live sinless; and I wish you to die tranquil."
"Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust for a passion—vice for an occupation?"
"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I; do so. You will forget me before I forget you."
"You make me a liar by such language; you sully my honor. I declared I could not change! you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved by your conduct? Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law—no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me."
This was true; and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as feeling, and that clamored wildly. "Oh, comply!" it said. "Think of his misery, think of his danger, look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature, consider the recklessness following on despair; soothe him, save him, love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?"
Still indomitable was the reply, "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained, I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God, sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation; they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth, so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane, quite insane, with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by; there I plant my foot."
I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His fury was wrought to the highest; he must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm, and grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance; physically, I felt at the moment powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace; mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful, interpreter—in the eye. My eye rose to his, and while I looked in his fierce face, I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my overtasked strength almost exhausted.
"Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand! (and he shook me with the force of his hold). I could bend her with my finger and thumb, and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye; consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage, with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it, the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house, but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit, with will and energy, and virtue and purity, that I want; not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself, you could come, with soft flight, and nestle against my heart, if you would; seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence; you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!"
As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain; only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury, I must elude his sorrow; I retired to the door.
"You are going, Jane?"
"I am going, sir."
"You are leaving me?"
"Yes."
"You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate firmly, "I am going!"
"Jane!"
"Mr. Rochester."
"Withdraw, then, I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings; think of me."
He turned away, he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my hope, my love, my life!" broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a deep, strong sob.
I had already gained the door, but, reader, I walked back—walked back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him, I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek, I smoothed his hair with my hand.
"God bless you, my dear master," I said. "God keep you from harm and wrong, direct you, solace you, reward you well for your past kindness to me."
"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered; "without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love; yes, nobly, generously."
Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes, erect he sprung, he held his arms out, but I evaded the embrace, and at once quitted the room.
"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart, as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell, forever!"
That night I never thought to sleep, but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood; I dreamed that I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look; the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapors she is about to sever. I watched her come, watched with the strangest anticipation, as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud; a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away, then, not a moon, but a white human form, shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit; immeasurably distant was the tone yet so near, it whispered in my heart,
"My daughter, flee temptation!"
"Mother, I will."
So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet night, but July nights are short; soon after midnight, dawn comes. "It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil," thought I. I rose, I was dressed, for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was not mine; it was the visionary bride's who had melted in air. The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my pocket; I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole from my room.
"Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!" I whispered, as I glided past her door. "Farewell, my darling Adèle!" I said, as I glanced toward the nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to deceive a fine ear; for aught I knew, it might now be listening.
I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there; the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was a heaven—a temporary heaven—in this room for me, if I chose; I had but to go in and say,
"Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till death," and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of this.
That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He would have me sought for; vainly. He would feel himself forsaken, his love rejected; he would suffer, perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this, too. My hand moved toward the lock, I caught it back and glided on.
Drearily I wound my way down stairs; I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side door in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread, for perhaps I should have to walk far, and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and locked, but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that I departed; it, too, I shut, and now I was out of Thornfield.
A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote; a road which I had never travelled, but often noticed, and wondered where it led; thither I bent my steps. No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like the world when the deluge was gone by.
I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes, till after sunrise. I believe it was a lovely summer morning; I know my shoes, which I had put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and the axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein, of the grave gaping at the end; and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and, oh! with agony, I thought of what I left! I could not help it. I thought of him now, in his room, watching the sun rise, hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him, and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return; it was not too late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter, his pride, his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment—far worse than my abandonment—how it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it further in. Birds began to sing in brake and copse; birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart, and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had no solace from self-approbation, none even from self-respect. I had injured, wounded, left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way; fast, fast I went, like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell; I lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear, or hope, that here I should die; but I was soon up, crawling forward on my hands and knees, and then again raised to my feet, as eager and as determined as ever to reach the road.
When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going; the driver named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said thirty shillings: I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was empty; I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.
Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine! May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonized as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love! |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 28 | Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no further for the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it must remain; and now I am absolutely destitute.
Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet; white-washed, I suppose, to be more obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit; the nearest town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten miles; the furthest, above twenty. From the well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain; this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these roads; they stretch out east, west, north, and south—white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now; strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I might be questioned; I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society at this moment—not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures are—none that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature; I will seek her breast and ask repose.
I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded, knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head; the sky was over that.
Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here; I had a vague dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined to night-fall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection.
What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere! when a long way must yet be measured by my weary, trembling limbs, before I could reach human habitation—when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging; reluctant sympathy importuned; almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!
I touched the heath; it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure; a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. Tonight, at least, I would be her guest—as I was her child; my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I had one morsel of bread yet, the remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon with a stray penny—my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath; I gathered a handful and eat them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal. I said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch.
Beside the crag, the heath was very deep; when I lay down my feet were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space tor the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was not, at least at the commencement of the night, cold.
My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him.
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was come, and her planets were risen; a safe, still night; too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty milky-way. Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light—I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made; convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving; the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe; he was God's, and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long, in sleep, forgot sorrow.
But next day, want came to me, pale and bare. Long after the little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried—when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky—I got up, and I looked round me.
What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter, here. But I was a human being, and had a human being's wants; I must not linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this—that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out.
Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered me—might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart and limb—I heard a bell chime—a church bell.
I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, among the romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of pasture-fields, and corn-fields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden wagon laboring up the hill; and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life and human labor were near. I must struggle on; strive to live and bend to toil like the rest.
About two o'clock P.M., I entered the village. At the bottom of its one street, there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain a degree of energy; without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some vigor returned to me as soon as I was among my fellow-beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles would be accepted; probably they would not, but I must try.
I entered the shop; a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How could she serve me? I was seized with shame; my tongue would not utter the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves, the creased handkerchief; besides, I felt it would be absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She pointed to a seat; I sunk into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained it. Soon I asked her "if there were any dressmaker or plain-work woman in the village?"
"Yes, two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for."
I reflected. I was driven to the point now, I was brought face to face with necessity. I stood in the position of one without a resource; without a friend; without a coin. I must do something. What? I must apply somewhere. Where?
"Did she know of any place in the neighborhood where a servant was wanted?"
"Nay; she couldn't say."
"What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the people do?"
"Some were farm-laborers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's needle factory, and at the foundry."
"Did Mr. Oliver employ women?"
"Nay; it was men's work."
"And what do the women do?"
"I knawn't," was the answer. "Some does one thing, and some another. Poor folk mun get on as they can."
She seemed to be tired of my questions; and, indeed, what claim had I to importune her? A neighbor or two came in; my chair was evidently wanted. I took leave.
I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside into a lane, and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed, I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something—a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat, and brilliantly blooming: I stopped at it. What business had I to approach the white door, or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly attired young woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart and fainting frame—a voice wretchedly low and faltering—I asked if a servant was wanted here?
"No," said she; "we do not keep a servant."
"Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind," I continued; "I am a stranger, without acquaintance, in this place. I want some work, no matter what."
But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character, position, tale. She shook her head; she "was sorry she could give me no information," and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly; but it shut me out. If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low.
I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared, in its thick shade, to offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature's cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude—rest no rest—while the vulture hunger thus sunk beak and talons in my side.
I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I wandered away, always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim to ask—no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church-spire before me; I hastened toward it. Near the church-yard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman's function to help—at least with advice—those who wish to help themselves. I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing, then, my courage, and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman opened; I asked was this the parsonage?
"Yes."
"Was the clergyman in?"
"No."
"Would he be in soon?"
"No, he was gone from home."
"To a distance?"
"Not so far—happen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden death of his father; he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely stay there a fortnight longer."
"Was there any lady of the house?"
"Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper"; and of her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.
Once more I took off my handkerchief—once more I thought of the cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, but for a crust! for but one mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were there besides the woman, I ventured the request, "Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?"
She looked at me with evident suspicion; "Nay, she never sold stuff i' that way."
Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.
"Would she take my gloves?"
"No; what could she do with them?"
Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude; the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be helped; an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right; if the offer appeared to her sinister, or the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense now. I am sick of the subject.
A little before dark I passed a farmhouse, at the open door of which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese; I stopped and said:
"Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry." He cast on me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it.
I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken; the ground was damp, the air cold; besides, intruders passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Toward morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig-trough. "Will you give me that?" I asked.
She stared at me. "Mother!" she exclaimed; "there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge."
"Well, lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar. T' pig doesn't want it."
The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously.
As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more.
"My strength is quite failing me," I said in soliloquy. "I feel I cannot go much further. Shall I be an outcast again this night? While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? I fear I cannot do otherwise; for who will receive me? But it will be very dreadful; with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this sense of desolation—this total prostration of hope. In all likelihood, though, I should die before morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is still living; and then, to die of want and cold, is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid—direct me!"
My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had strayed far from the village; it was quite out of sight. The very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-ways and by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.
"Well; I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented road," I reflected. "And far better that crows and ravens—if any ravens there be in these regions—should pick my flesh from my bones, than that they should be imprisoned in a workhouse coffin, and moulder in a pauper's grave."
To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not secure; but all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no variation but of tint; green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and shade, for color had faded with the daylight.
My eye still roved over the sullen swell, and along the moor-edge, vanishing amid the wildest scenery, when, at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprung up. "That is an ignis fatuus," was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It burned on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. "Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?" I questioned. I watched to see whether it would spread; but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not enlarge. "It may be a candle in a house," I then conjectured; "but if so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away; and were it within a yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the door to have it shut in my face."
And I sunk down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I lay still a while; the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost—the friendly numbness of death—it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered to its chilling influence. I rose ere long.
The light was yet there, shining dim, but constant, through the rain. I tried to walk again; I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly toward it. It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope; I must gain it.
Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I approached it; it was a road or a track; it led straight up to the light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amid a clump of trees—firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I drew near; some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my hand to feel the dark mass before me; I discriminated the rough stones of a low wall—above it something like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before me; it was a gate—a wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable bush—holly or yew.
Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle; there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burned on the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking.
I noticed these objects cursorily only—in them there was nothing extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, sitting still amid the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young, graceful women—ladies in every point—sat, one in a low rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and bombasin, which sombre garb singularly set off their very fair necks and faces; a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one girl—in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.
A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who are they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs; and yet, as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call them handsome—they were too pale and grave for the word; as they each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which they frequently referred; comparing them seemingly with the smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all the figures had been shadows, and the fire-lit apartment a picture; so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman's knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.
"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which he has wakened in terror—listen!" And in a low voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an unknown tongue—neither French nor Latin. Whether it were Greek or German I could not tell.
"That is strong," she said, when she had finished; "I relish it." The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line which had been read. At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the line; though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me—conveying no meaning:
"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good! good!" she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.' I like it!"
Both were again silent.
"Is there ony country were they talk i' that way?" asked the old woman, looking up from her knitting.
"Yes, Hannah—a far larger country than England, where they talk in no other way."
"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other; and if either o'ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?"
"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all—for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."
"And what good does it do you?"
"We mean to teach it some time-or at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money than we do now."
"Varry like; but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to night."
"I think we have; at least, I'm tired. Mary, are you?"
"Mortally; after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no master but a lexicon."
"It is; especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home."
"Surely he will not be long now; it is just ten (looking at a little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast. Hannah, will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlor?"
The woman rose; she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage; soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.
"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now; it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner."
She wiped her eyes with her apron; the two girls, grave before, looked sad now.
"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah; "we shouldn't wish him here again. And then nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had."
"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.
"He hadn't time, bairn; he was gone in a minute—was your father. He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of heaviness in his head the next day—that is, a fortnight sin'—and he went to sleep and niver wakened; he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that's t' last o' t'old stock—for ye and Mr. St. John is like of a different soart to them 'at's gone; for all your mother wor mich i' your way, and a'most as book-learned. She wor the pictur' o' ye, Mary; Diana is more like your father."
I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth; Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with their curls. The clock struck ten.
"Ye'll want your supper, I'm sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr. St. John when he comes in."
And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed about to withdraw to the parlor. Till this moment, I had been so intent on watching them—their appearance and conversation had excited in me so keen an interest—I had half forgotten my own wretched position; now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf—to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woes—to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be indeed a mere chimera. Hannah opened.
"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.
"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.
"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come from?"
"I am a stranger."
"What is your business here at this hour?"
"I want a night's shelter in an out-house, or anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat."
Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take in a vagrant to lodge; it isn't likely."
"Do let me speak to your mistresses."
"No; not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about now; it looks very ill."
"But where shall I go, if you drive me away? What shall I do?"
"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go, and what to do. Mind you don't do wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go."
"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go further. Don't shut the door—oh, don't, for God's sake!"
"I must—the rain is driving in."
"Tell the young ladies—let me see them!"
"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't make such a noise. Move off!"
"But I must die if I am turned away."
"Not you. I'm feard you have some ill plans agate that bring you about folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any followers—housebreakers, or such like—anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house. We have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to, and bolted it within.
This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true despair—rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sunk on the wet door-step; I groaned—I wrung my hands—I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last hour approaching in such horror! Alas! this isolation—this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude, was gone—at least, for a moment; but the last I soon endeavored to regain.
"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence."
These words I not only thought, but uttered; and, thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there, dumb and still.
"All men must die," said a voice, quite close at hand; "but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want."
"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was near—what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud, long knock, the new-comer appealed to the door.
"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.
"Yes—yes; open quickly."
"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come in—your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman. I declare—she is not gone yet—laid down there! Get up—for shame! Move off, I say!"
"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case. I must, at least, examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the house."
With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, bright kitchen—on the very hearth—trembling, sickening; conscious of an aspect, in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at me.
"St. John, who is it?" I heard one ask.
"I cannot tell; I found her at the door," was the reply.
"She does look white," said Hannah.
"As white as clay or death," was responded. "She will fall—let her sit."
And, indeed, my head swam. I dropped; but a chair received me. I still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.
"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!"
"A mere spectre!"
"Is she ill, or only famished?"
"Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of bread."
Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine; I saw there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to eat."
"Yes—try," repeated Mary, gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me; feebly, at first—eagerly, soon.
"Not too much, at first; restrain her," said the brother; "she has had enough." And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.
"A little more, St. John; look at the avidity in her eyes."
"No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now—ask her her name."
I felt I could speak, and I answered: "My name is Jane Elliott." Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an alias.
"And where do you live? Where are your friends?"
I was silent.
"Can we send for any one you know?"
I shook my head.
"What account can you give of yourself?"
Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off the mendicant—to resume my natural manner and character. I began once more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account—which, at present, I was far too weak to render—I said, after a brief pause:
"Sir, I can give you no details tonight."
"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you?"
"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana took the word:
"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you require; and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?"
I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her compassionate gaze with a smile, I said, "I will trust you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your hearth tonight; as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me as you like, but excuse me from much discourse; my breath is short—I feel a spasm when I speak." All three surveyed me, and all three were silent.
"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlor and talk the matter over."
They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned—I could not tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire. In an under tone, she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a stair-case—my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I thanked God; experienced amid unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy—and slept. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 29 | The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small room, and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown. I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time—of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one entered or left the apartment; I could even tell who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near me; but I could not answer. To open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a feeling that she wished me away; that she did not understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside—
"It is very well we took her in."
"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning, had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through?"
"Strange hardships, I imagine, poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer!"
"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of speaking. Her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine."
"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would be agreeable."
Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me; or of suspicion of, or aversion to, myself. I was comforted.
Mr. St. John came but once. He looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor; nature, he was sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in few words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little accustomed to expansive comment, "rather an unusual physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation."
"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit her permanently."
"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate; but I trace lines of force in her face which make me sceptical of her trac tability." He stood considering me some minutes; then added, "She looks sensible, but not at all handsome."
"She is so ill, St. John."
"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those features."
On the third day, I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner hour. I had eaten with relish. The food was good—void of the feverish flavor which had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and revived; ere long satiety of repose, and desire for action, stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.
On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were removed from it; the creases left by the wet, smoothed out. It was quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and a brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me, for I was much wasted; but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and, once more clean and respectable-looking-no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left—I crept down a stone stair-case, with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow, low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.
It was full of the fragrance of new bread, and the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first; latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.
"What, you have got up?" she said. "You are better, then. You may sit down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will."
She pointed to the rocking-chair; I took it. She bustled about, examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly,
"Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?"
I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness,
"You are mistaken, in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar, any more than yourself or your young ladies."
After a pause, she said, "I dunnut understand that; you've like no house, nor no brass, I guess?"
"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not make a beggar in your sense of the word."
"Are you book-learned?" she inquired presently.
"Yes, very."
"But you've never been to boarding-school?"
"I was at a boarding-school eight years."
She opened her eyes wide. "Whatever cannot ye keep yourseln for, then?"
"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are you going to do with those gooseberries?" I inquired, as she brought out a basket of the fruit.
"Mak'em into pies."
"Give them to me and I'll pick them."
"Nay; I dunnut want ye to do naught."
"But I must do something. Let me have them."
She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my dress, "lest," as she said, "I should mucky it."
"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she remarked. "Happen ye've been a dressmaker?"
"No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been; don't trouble your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we are."
"Some calls it Marsh-End, and some calls it Moor House."
"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?"
"Nay; he doesn't live here; he is only staying a while. When he is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton."
"That village a few miles off?"
"Ay."
"And what is he?"
"He is a parson."
I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I had asked to see the clergyman. "This, then, was his father's residence?"
"Ay; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and gurt (great) grandfather afore him."
"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?"
"Ay; St. John is like his kirstened name."
"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?"
"Yes."
"Their father is dead?"
"Dead three weeks sin', of a stroke."
"They have no mother?"
"The mistress has been dead this mony a year."
"Have you lived with the family long?"
"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three."
"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar."
She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she said, "I was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you; but there is so mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me."
"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."
"Well, it was hard; but what can a body do? I thought more o' th' childer nor of mysel; poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on 'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish."
I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.
"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.
"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why;—not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no 'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime."
"No more I ought," said she; "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I wor wrang—but I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater."
"That will do—I forgive you now. Shake hands."
She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.
Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer," as she called the young people.
Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough; but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh-End had belonged to the Rivers' ever since it was a house; and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two hundred year old—for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver's father, a journeyman needle-maker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry." Still, she allowed, "the owd maister was like other folk—naught mich out o' t' common way; stark mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like." The mistress was different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns" had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak' of their own." Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses; for they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of money, by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like Marsh-End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other—never fell out nor "threaped." She did not know where there was such a family for being united.
Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now.
"Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half an hour to tea."
They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them; they entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped. Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand; she shook her head at me.
"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You still look very pale—and so thin! Poor child! poor girl!"
Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally intelligent—her features equally pretty; but her expression was more reserved; and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority; she had a will evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers; and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will.
"And what business have you here?" she continued. "It is not your place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be free, even to license—but you are a visitor, and must go into the parlor."
"I am very well here."
"Not at all—with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour."
"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.
"To be sure," added her sister. "Come you must be obedient." And still holding my hand, she made me rise, and led me into the inner room.
"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our little moorland home—to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined; or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing."
She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first the parlor, and then its occupant.
The parlor was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superflous ornament in the room—not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table; everything—including the carpet and curtains—looked at once well worn and well saved.
Mr. St. John—sitting as still as one of the dusky pictures on the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips mutely sealed—was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young—perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty—tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline; quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his. He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colorless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.
This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top of the oven.
"Eat that now," she said; "you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast."
I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed his blue, pictorial-looking eyes full upon me. There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness, in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.
"You are very hungry," he said.
"I am, sir." It is my way—it always was my way by instinct—ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.
"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days; there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat; though still not immoderately."
"I trust that I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer.
"No," he said coolly; "when you have indicated to us the residence of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home."
"That, I must plainly tell you, it is out of my power to do; being absolutely without home and friends."
The three looked at me; but not distrustfully. I felt there was no suspicion in their glances; there was more of curiosity. I speak particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's thoughts than as agents to reveal his own; the combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.
"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated from every connection?"
"I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing, not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England."
"A most singular position at your age!"
Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the table before. I wondered what he sought there; his words soon explained the quest.
"You have never been married? You are a spinster?"
Diana laughed. "Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years old, St. John," said she.
"I am near nineteen, but I am not married. No."
I felt a burning glow mount to my face, for bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crim soned visage; but the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well as color.
"Where did you last reside?" he now asked.
"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary, in a low voice; but he leaned over the table and required an answer, by a second firm and piercing look.
"The name of the place where, and of the person with whom, I lived, is my secret," I replied concisely.
"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from St. John and every other questioner," remarked Diana.
"Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you," he said. "And you need help, do you not?"
"I need it, and I seek it; so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life."
"I know not whether I am a true philanthropist, yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then, tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you can do."
I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage, as much so as a giant with wine; it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.
"Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him as he looked at me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters have done me a great service, the greatest man can do a fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have harbored as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind—my own security, moral and physical, and that of others.
"I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I could know them. I was brought up a dependent; educated at a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher, Lowood Orphan Asylum,—shire; you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers? The Rev. Robert Brocklehurst is the trea surer."
"I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school."
"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot and ought not to explain; it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me; I am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a time, for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points in planning my departure—speed, secrecy; to secure these I had to leave behind me everything I possessed, except a small parcel, which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighborhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing a threshold; but twice in that space of time did I taste food, and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair, almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish with want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I know all your sisters have done for me since, for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor, and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity."
"Don't make her talk any more now, St. John," said Diana, as I paused; "she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa, and sit down now, Miss Elliott."
I gave an involuntary half-start at hearing the alias; I had forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at once.
"You said your name was Jane Elliott?" he observed.
"I did say so, and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be called at present; but it is not my real name, and when I hear it it sounds strange to me."
"Your real name you will not give?"
"No; I fear discovery above all things, and whatever disclosure would lead to it I avoid."
"You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana. "Now, do, brother, let her be at peace a while."
But when St. John had mused a few moments, he recommenced, as imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever.
"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality—you would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters' compassion; and, above all, with my charity (I am quite sensible of the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it—it is just); you desire to be independent of us?"
"I do; I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek work; that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest cottage—but till then allow me to stay here; I dread another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution."
"Indeed, you shall stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. "You shall," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity, which seemed natural to her.
"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John, "as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird some wintry wind might have driven through their casement. I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavor to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish; my aid must be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succor than such as I can offer."
"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can do," answered Diana, for me; "and you know, St. John, she has no choice of helpers; she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you."
"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-work-woman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better," I answered.
"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. "If such is your spirit, I promise to aid you—in my own time and way."
He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I soon withdrew; for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my present strength would permit. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 30 | The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time—the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.
I liked to read what they liked to read; what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their sequestered home. I, too, in the gray, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs—all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom—found a charm, both potent and permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended; and which wound between fern-banks first, and then among a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of gray moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs; they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness; my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep—on the wild coloring communicated to ridge and dell, by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them—so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them—wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.
In-doors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent me; then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion; we coincided, in short, perfectly.
If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me; she was handsome; she was vigorous. In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I could talk a while when the evening commenced; but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary; while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her; I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed, mutual affection of the strongest kind was the result. They discovered I could draw; their pencils and color-boxes were immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together; then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.
As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at home; a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish.
No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions; rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty—I scarcely know in which light he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavorable, his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful—
"And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?"
Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.
But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him; he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labors, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye.
I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once, in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence—never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.
Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon; but it is past my power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.
It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end; an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language. This grew to force—compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher; neither were softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me—I know not whether equally so to others—that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment—where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers—pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was—had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding; he had no more found it, I thought, than had I; with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring; but which possessed me and tyrannized over me ruthlessly.
Meantime, a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city; where each held a situation in families, by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither knew nor sought one of their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook, or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlor, I ventured to approach the window-recess-which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study—and I was going to speak; though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his—when he saved me the trouble, by being the first to commence a dialogue.
Looking up as I drew near—"You have a question to ask of me?" he said.
"Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake."
"I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy here—as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh-End should render yours necessary."
"And they will go in three days now?" I said.
"Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton; Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up."
I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first broached; but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection; his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me.
"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it."
"Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept."
He again paused; there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew impatient; a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.
"You need be in no hurry to hear," he said; "let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure; Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependent's crust among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native country—not only for this life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem himself honored by the lot; and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, 'Rise, follow me!'"
St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of glance. He resumed—
"And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity. You may even think it degrading—for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined; your tastes lean to the ideal; and your society has at least been among the educated—but I consider that no service degrades which can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian laborer's task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the meed his toil brings—the higher the honor. His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer himself."
"Well!" I said, as he again paused—"proceed."
He looked at me before he proceeded; indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.
"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it for a while; not permanently though, any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine; though of a different kind."
"Do explain," I urged, when he halted once more.
"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is—how triv ial—how cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelvemonth; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school; the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress. I established one for boys; I mean now to open a second school, for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress' house. Her salary would be thirty pounds a year; her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver, the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle factory and iron foundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school, as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?"
He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful, rejection of the offer; not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum; it was plodding—but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron; it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading. I made my decision.
"I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers; and I accept it with all my heart."
"But you comprehend me?" he said. "It is a village school; your scholars will be only poor girls—cottagers' children—at the best, farmers' daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will have to teach. What will you do with your accomplishments? What with the largest portion of your mind—sentiments—tastes?"
"Save them till they are wanted. They will keep."
"You know what you undertake, then?"
"I do."
He now smiled; and not a bitter or a sad smile; but one well pleased and deeply gratified.
"And when will you commence the exercise of your function?"
"I will go to my house to-morrow; and open the school, if you like, next week."
"Very well; so be it."
He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at me. He shook his head.
"What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?" I asked.
"You will not stay at Morton long; no, no!"
"Why? What is your reason for saying so?"
"I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the maintenance of an even tenor in life."
"I am not ambitious."
He started at the word "ambitious." He repeated, "No. What made you think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am; but how did you find it out?"
"I was speaking of myself."
"Well, if you are not ambitious, you are—" He paused.
"What?"
"I was going to say, impassioned; but perhaps you would have misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labor wholly void of stimulus, any more than I can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountain—my nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, Heaven-bestowed, paralyzed—made useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood, and drawers of water, in God's service—I, his ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means."
He left the room. In this brief hour I had learned more of him than in the whole previous month; yet still he puzzled me.
Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years—it might be a parting for life.
"He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves," she said; "natural affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane, but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe decision; certainly I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is right, noble, Christian; yet it breaks my heart." And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work.
"We are now without father; we shall soon be without home and brother," she murmured.
At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage that "Misfortunes never come singly"; and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a letter. He entered.
"Our Uncle John is dead," said he.
Both the sisters seemed struck; not shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.
"Dead?" repeated Diana.
"Yes."
She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face. "And what then?" she demanded, in a low voice.
"What then, Di?" he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature. "What then? Why—nothing. Read."
He threw a letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive smile enough.
"Amen! We can yet live," said Diana, at last.
"At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before," remarked Mary.
"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what might have been, " said Mr. Rivers; "and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is."
He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and then went out.
For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me.
"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said; "and think us hardhearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual recriminations passed between them; they parted in anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged afterward in more prosperous undertakings; it appears he realized a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but ourselves, and one other person, not more closely related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us. That letter informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased; and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do."
This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it, by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day, I left Marsh-End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for distant B—. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage; and so the old grange was abandoned. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 31 | My home, then—when I at last find a home—is a cottage; a little room with white-washed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal-bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe; though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased that by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.
It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. This morning the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But three of the number can read; none write or cipher. Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's language. Some of them are unman nered, rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy, and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs. Surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect in the life opening before me; yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on from day to day.
Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must reply—No. I felt desolate to a degree. I felt—yes, idiot that I am—I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sunk instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness, of all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars, may substitute gratification for disgust.
Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better? To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle; but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, among the luxuries of a pleasure-villa; to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be. But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and, above all, feeling? Whether it is better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?
Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice. I thank His providence for the guidance!
Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my cottage; which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains—
The air was mild; the dew was balm.
While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself, ere long, weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master; for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton—I say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me, there was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half hid in trees; and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leaned my head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it, made me look up. A dog—old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in a moment—was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leaned upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.
"No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for you. I think it contains a color-box, pencils, and paper."
I approached to take it; a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I thought, with austerity, as I came near. The traces of tears were, doubtless, very visible upon it.
"Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?" he asked.
"Oh, no! On the contrary, I think, in time, I shall get on with my scholars very well."
"But perhaps your accommodations—your cottage—your furniture—have disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but—" I interrupted:
"My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a sofa, and silver plate. Besides, five weeks ago I had nothing—I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine."
"But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is rather dark and empty?"
"I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness."
"Very well; I hope you feel the content you express; at any rate, your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist, firmly, every temptation which would incline you to look back; pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least."
"It is what I mean to do," I answered. St. John continued—
"It is hard work to control the workings of inclination, and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get—when our will strains after a path we may not follow—we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair; we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it.
"A year ago, I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry; its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burned for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest; yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered my life was so wretched, it must be changed or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell; my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds—my powers heard a call from Heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed; for these all centre in the good missionary.
"A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. My father, indeed, opposed the determination; but since his death, I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I will overcome—and I leave Europe for the East."
He said this in his peculiar, subdued yet emphatic voice; looking, when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs toward the path leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start, when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed—
"Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is quicker to recognize his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your back toward me now."
It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him; his arm resting on the gate, his face directed toward the west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white—a youthful, graceful form; full, yet fine, in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it; as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapory skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and colored as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white, smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek, oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small, dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, combined, realize the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature; I admired her with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a granddame's bounty.
What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket.
"A lovely evening; but late for you to be out alone," he said, as he crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.
"Oh, I only came home from S—(she mentioned the name of a large town some twenty miles distant) this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her; this is she?" pointing to me.
"It is," said St. John.
"Do you think you shall like Morton?" she asked of me, with a direct and naive simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if childlike.
"I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so."
"Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?"
"Quite."
"Do you like your house?"
"Very much."
"Have I furnished it nicely?"
"Very nicely, indeed."
"And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?"
"You have, indeed. She is teachable and handy." (This, then, I thought, is Miss Oliver, the heiress, favored, it seems, in the gifts of fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the planets presided over her birth, I wonder?)
"I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes," she added. "It will be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr. Rivers, I have been so gay during my stay at S—. Last night, or rather this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The—th regiment are stationed there, since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world; they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor-merchants to shame."
It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh; and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes.
As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. "Poor Carlo loves me," said she. "He is not stern and distant to his friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent."
As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face. I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless motion. Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him.
"Papa says you never come to see us now," continued Miss Oliver, looking up. "You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening, and not very well; will you return with me and visit him?"
"It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver," answered St. John.
"Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when papa most wants company; when the works are closed, and he has no business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why are you so very shy, and so very sombre?" She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her own.
"I forgot," she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if shocked at herself. "I am so giddy and thoughtless! Do excuse me. It had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see papa."
"Not tonight, Miss Rosamond, not tonight."
Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton; himself only knew the effort it cost him thus to refuse.
"Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any longer; the dew begins to fall. Good-evening!"
She held out her hand. He just touched it. "Good-evening!" he repeated, in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned; but in a moment returned.
"Are you well?" she asked. Well might she put the question; his face was blanched as her gown.
"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him, as she tripped fairylike down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at all.
This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifices wrapped my thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother "inexorable as death." She had not exaggerated. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 32 | I continued the labors of the village school as actively and faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike; but I soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference among them as among the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping rustics, wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves obliging, and amiable, too; and I discovered among them not a few examples of natural politeness and innate self-respect, as well as of excellent capacity, that won both my good will and my admiration. These soon took a pleasure in doing their work well—in keeping their persons neat—in learning their tasks regularly—in acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it; besides, I began personally to like some of the best girls, and they liked me. I had among my scholars several farmers' daughters—young women grown, almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of needlework. I found estimable characters among them—characters desirous of information, and disposed for improvement—with whom I passed many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a consideration—a scrupulous regard to their feelings—to which they were not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.
I felt I became a favorite in the neighborhood. Whenever I went out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly smiles. To live amid general regard, though it be but the regard of working-people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sunk with dejection; and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existence—after a day passed in honorable exertion among my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange dreams at night—dreams many-colored, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy—dreams where, amid unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him—the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke; then I recalled where I was, and how situated; then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning, I was punctually opening the school—tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day.
Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be imagined; and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children. She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechizing lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the young visitress pierce the young pastor's heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably; and in their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervor, stronger than the working muscle or darting glance could indicate.
Of course, she knew her power; indeed, he did not, because he could not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up and addressed him, and smiled gayly, encouragingly, even fondly, in his face, his hand would tremble, and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, "I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps me dumb; if I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar—the fire is arranged round it; it will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed."
And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal paradise. Besides, he could not bound all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest—in the limits of a single passion. He could not—he would not—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the parlors and the peace of Vale Hall. I learned so much from himself, in an inroad I once, despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.
Miss Oliver already honored me with frequent visits to my cottage. I had learned her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise; she was coquettish, but not heardess—exacting, but not worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely spoiled. She was hasty, but good-humored; vain (she could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking; she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adèle; except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance.
She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers (only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome; though I was a nice, neat little soul enough; but he was an angel"). I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturae, she affirmed, as a village school mistress; she was sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while with her usual childlike activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary; and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the vale of Morton, and on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.
"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a love—what a miracle I was! I drew—better than her master in the first school in S—. Would I sketch a portrait of her to show to papa?"
"With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine cardboard, and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of coloring it; and as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another day.
She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and gray-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond's portrait pleased him highly; he said I must make a finished picture of it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale Hall.
I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school; and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and would soon quit it for one more suitable.
"Indeed!" cried Rosamond, "she is clever enough to be a governess in a high family, papa!"
I thought—I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with great respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighborhood; that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond's union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession, as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune.
It was the fifth of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured floor, polished grate, and well rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.
The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my pallet and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier, occupation of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The head was finished already; there was but the background to tint, and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers.
"I am come to see how you are spending your holiday," he said. "Not, I hope, in thought? No, that is well; while you draw you will not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still; though you have borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace," and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem; one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less favored. But, courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay; they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength, again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep, over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no; do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem; and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness.
While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of Marmion (for Marmion it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure sprang erect again with a start; he said nothing. I looked up at him; he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he; I had then temporarily the advantage of him; and I conceived an inclination to do him some good, if I could.
"With all his firmness and self-control," thought I, "he tasks himself too far; locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry; I will make him talk."
I said first, "Take a chair, Mr. Rivers." But he answered, as he always did, that he could not stay. "Very well," I responded, mentally, "stand if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined; solitude is at least as bad for you as it is for me. I'll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy."
"Is this portrait like?" I asked, bluntly.
"Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely."
"You did, Mr. Rivers."
He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness; he looked at me astonished. "Oh, that is nothing yet," I muttered within. "I don't mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I'm prepared to go to considerable lengths." I continued, "You observed it closely and distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again," and I rose and placed it in his hand.
"A well-executed picture," he said; "very soft, clear coloring; very graceful and correct drawing."
"Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it like?"
Mastering some hesitation, he answered, "Miss Oliver, I pre sume."
"Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I don't wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would deem worthless."
He continued to gaze at the picture; the longer he looked the firmer he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. "It is like!" he murmured; "the eye is well managed; the color, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!"
"Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession; or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?"
He now furtively raised his eyes; he glanced at me irresolute, disturbed; he again surveyed the picture.
"That I should like to have it is certain; whether it would be judicious or wise is another question."
Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my views than St. John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr. Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion, I now answered:
"As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to take to yourself the original at once."
By this time he had sat down; he had laid the picture on the table before him, and, with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed unapproachable, to hear it thus freely handled, was beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure, an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to "burst" with boldness and good will into "the silent sea" of their souls, is often to confer on them the first of obligations.
"She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood behind his chair, "and her father respects you. Moreover, she is a girl—rather thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to marry her."
"Does she like me?" he asked.
"Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you continually; there is no subject she enjoys so much, or touches upon so often."
"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said, "very; go on for another quarter of an hour." And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon the table to measure the time.
"But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter your heart?"
"Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing; human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind, and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully, and with such labor, prepared; so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a nectarious flood; the young germs swamped, delicious poison cankering them, now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at Vale Hall, at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet; she is talking to me with her sweet voice, gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well, smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine; I am hers; this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say nothing; my heart is full of delight, my senses are entranced; let the time I marked pass in peace."
I humored him; the watch ticked on, he breathed fast and low, I stood silent. Amid this hush the quarter sped; he replaced the watch, laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.
"Now," said he, "that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow is burning, there is an asp in the garland; the wine has a bitter taste, her promises are hollow, her offers false; I see and know all this."
I gazed at him in wonder.
"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly, with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, and fascinating, I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage, and that to twelve months' rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know."
"Strange, indeed!" I could not help ejaculating.
"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects; they are such that she could sympathize in nothing I aspired to; cooperate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a laborer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary's wife? No!"
"But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme."
"Relinquish? What—my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race; of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance, of substituting peace for war, freedom for bondage, religion for superstition, the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for."
After a considerable pause, I said, "And Miss Oliver? Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?"
"Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers; in less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me, and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I should do."
"You speak coolly enough, but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting away."
"No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet unsettled; my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come yet, and perhaps the three months may extend to six."
"You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom."
Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.
"You are original," said he, "and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I color and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble—a mere fever of the flesh; not, I declare, a convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed as a rock firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am—a cold, hard man."
I smiled incredulously.
"You have taken my confidence by storm," he continued, "and now it is much at your service. I am simply, in my original state—stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not Feeling, is my guide: my ambition is unlimited—my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honor endurance, perseverance, industry, talent, because these are the means by which men achieve great ends, and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman; not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer."
"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.
"No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a pagan, but a Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus. As his disciple, I adopt his pure, his merciful, his benignant doctrines. I advocate them—I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original qualities thus: From the minute germ, natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From the wild, stringy root of human uprightness she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's kingdom—to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best account—pruning and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature; nor will it be eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality.'"
Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my pallet. Once more he looked at the portrait.
"She is lovely," he murmured. "She is well named the Rose of the World; indeed!"
"And may I paint one like it for you?"
"Cui bono? No."
He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it up with a snatch; he looked at the edge, then shot a glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible—a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress, for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, as if to speak, but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.
"What is the matter?" I asked.
"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good-afternoon," he vanished.
"Well!" I exclaimed, using an expression of the district: "that caps the globe, however!"
I, in my turn, scrutinized the paper; but saw nothing on it, save a few dingy stains of paint, where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I pondered the mystery a minute or two; but, finding it insolvable, and being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed and soon forgot it. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 33 | When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and, after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth, listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lighted a candle, took down Marmion and, beginning—
Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,
And Cheviot mountains lone;
The massive towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round them sweep,
In yellow lustre shone.
I soon forgot storm in music.
I heard a noise; the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane, the howling darkness, and stood before me, the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up vale that night.
"Any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?"
"No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up against the door, toward which he again coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his boots.
"I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse me for once." Then he approached the fire. "I have had hard work to get here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame. "One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet."
"But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying.
"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but, since you ask it, I answer, simply, to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday, I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel."
He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity; I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead, and let the fire-light shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale; where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip; he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart; I was moved to say—
"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you; it is too bad that you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own health."
"Not at all," said he; "I care for myself when necessary; I am well now. What do you see amiss in me?"
This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was silenced.
He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which was behind him.
"No, no," he responded, shortly and somewhat testily.
"Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let you alone now, and return to my book."
So I snuffed the candle, and resumed the perusal of Marmion. He soon stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter which he read in silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in my impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk I would.
"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?"
"Not since the letter I showed you a week ago."
"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?"
"I fear not, indeed; such chance is too good to befall me."
Baffled so far, I changed my ground—I bethought myself to talk about the school and my scholars.
"Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry Close—they would have come today but for the snow."
"Indeed?"
"Mr. Oliver pays for two."
"Does he?"
"He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas."
"I know."
"Was it your suggestion?"
"No."
"Whose, then?"
"His daughter's, I think."
"It is like her; she is so good-natured."
"Yes."
Again came the blank of a pause; the clock struck eight strokes. It roused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.
"Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire," he said.
Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.
"Half an hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear the sequel of a tale; on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting you into a listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the rest, whether trite or novel, it is short.
"Twenty years ago, a poor curate—never mind his name at this moment—fell in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge church-yard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in—shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity received in her lap—cold as that of the snow-drift I almost stuck fast in tonight. Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead—you start—did you hear a noise? I dare say it is only a rat, scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats. To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years; whether it was happy or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know—being no other than Lowood school, where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career there was very honorable; from a pupil, she became a teacher, like yourself—really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and yours—she left it to be a governess; there again, your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester."
"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.
"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while; I have nearly finished: hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester's character I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honorable marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and proposals were, is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone—no one could tell when, where, or how. She had left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had been vain; the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be found is become a matter of serious urgency; advertisements have been put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not an odd tale?"
"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can tell it me—what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he doing? Is he well?"
"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester; the letter never mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess—the nature of the event which requires her appearance."
"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?"
"I suppose not."
"But they wrote to him?"
"Of course."
"And what did he say? Who has his letters?"
"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady; it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'"
I felt cold and dismayed; my worst fears, then, were probably true; he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to some former haunt on the continent. And what opiate for his severe sufferings—what object for his strong passions—had he sought there? I dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master—once almost my husband—whom I had often called "my dear Edward"!
"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.
"You don't know him—don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I said with warmth.
"Very well," he answered, quietly; "and, indeed, my head is otherwise occupied than with him; I have my tale to finish. Since you won't ask the governess' name, I must tell it of my own accord—stay—I have it here—it is always more satisfactory to see important points written down, fairly committed to black and white."
And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off; I recognized in its texture, and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermilion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes; and I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words "JANE EYRE"—the work, doubtless, of some moment of abstraction.
"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre," he said; "the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre; I knew a Jane Elliott. I confess I had my suspicions; but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into certainty. You own the name, and renounce the alias?"
'Yes—yes—but where is Mr. Briggs? He, perhaps, knows more of Mr. Rochester than you do."
"Briggs is in London; I should doubt his knowing anything at all about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime you forget essential points in pursuing trifles; you do not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you—what he wanted with you."
"Well, what did he want?"
"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich—merely that—nothing more."
"I! rich?"
"Yes, you, rich—quite an heiress."
Silence succeeded.
"You must prove your identity, of course," resumed St. John, presently; "a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents."
Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth—a very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving; this is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it; all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares—and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.
Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words Death, Funeral. My uncle, I had heard, was dead—my only relative; ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one day seeing him; now, I never should. And then this money came only to me; not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a grand boon, doubtless; and independence would be glorious—yes, I felt that—that thought swelled my heart.
"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers; "I thought Medusa had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone; perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?"
"How much am I worth?"
"Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of—twenty thousand pounds, I think they say—but what is that?"
"Twenty thousand pounds!"
Here was a new stunner—I had been calculating on four or five thousand. This news actually took my breath for a moment; Mr. St. John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now.
"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast."
"It is a large sum—don't you think there is a mistake?"
"No mistake at all."
"Perhaps you have read the figures wrong—it may be 2,000?"
"It is written in letters, not figures—twenty thousand."
I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronom ical powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.
"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send Hannah down to keep you company; you look too desperately miserable to be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I; her legs are not quite so long; so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows. Good-night."
He was lifting the latch; a sudden thought occurred to me.
"Stop one minute!" I cried.
"Well?"
"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way place, had the power to aid in my discovery."
"Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to about odd matters." Again the latch rattled.
"No; that does not satisfy me!" I exclaimed; and, indeed, there was something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply, which, instead of allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.
"It is a very strange piece of business," I added; "I must know more about it."
"Another time."
"No; tonight! tonight!" and as he turned from the door, I placed myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.
"You certainly shall not go till you have told me all!" I said.
"I would rather not, just now."
"You shall! you must!"
"I would rather Diana or Mary informed you."
Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax; gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.
"But I apprized you that I was a hard man," said he, "difficult to persuade."
"And I am a hard woman—impossible to put off."
"And then," he pursued, "I am cold; no fervor infects me."
"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanor of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know."
"Well, then," he said, "I yield—if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance—as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must know some day—as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre!"
"Of course; that was all settled before." "You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?—that I was christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"
"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E comprised in your initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely—"
I stopped; I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, the thought that rushed upon me—that embodied itself—that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order; the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight—every ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation.
"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death; and to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman's orphan daughter; overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again, a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost; and asking if we knew anything of her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find her out. You know the rest." Again he was going, but I set my back against the door.
"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and reflect." I paused—he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed enough. I resumed—
"Your mother was my father's sister?"
"Yes."
"My aunt, consequently?"
He bowed.
"My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his sister's children, as I am his brother's child?"
"Undeniably."
"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from the same source?"
"We are cousins; yes."
I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother; one I could be proud of—one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair, were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!—wealth to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating!—not like the ponderous gift of gold—rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.
"Oh, I am glad—I am glad!" I exclaimed.
St. John smiled. "Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue trifles?" he asked. "You were serious when I told you you had got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited."
"What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters, and don't care for a cousin, but I had nobody; and now three relations—or two, if you don't choose to be counted—are born into my world, full grown. I say again, I am glad!"
I walked fast through the room; I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle them; thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long. I looked at the blank wall; it seemed a sky, thick with ascending stars—every one lighted me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under a yoke; I could free them: they were scattered—I could reunite them—the independence, the affluence, which was mine, might be theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally, would be five thousand each—enough and to spare; justice would be done—mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me; now it was not a mere bequest of coin—it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment.
How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me to be composed. I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.
"Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come home directly; Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well."
"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you must really make an effort to tranquillize your feelings."
"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down like an ordinary mortal?"
"You wander; your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength."
"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience; I am rational enough; it is you who misunderstand; or, rather, who affect to misunderstand."
"Perhaps if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should comprehend better."
"Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I want is, that you should write to your sisters, and tell them of the fortune that has accrued to them."
"To you, you mean."
"I have intimated my view of the case; I am incapable of taking any other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about it; let us agree among each other, and decide the point at once."
"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid."
"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy; you see the justice of the case?"
"I do see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. Besides, the entire fortune is your right; my uncle gained it by his own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would; he left it to you. After all, justice permits you to keep it; you may, with a clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own."
"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience. I must indulge my feelings, I so seldom have had an opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a glimpse—that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to myself lifelong friends."
"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know what it is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy, wealth. You cannot form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to you. You cannot—"
"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers and sisters; I must and will have them now. You are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?"
"Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights."
"Brother? Yes, at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes, slaving among strangers! I, wealthy—gorged with gold I never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternization! Close union! Intimate attachment!"
"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may be realized otherwise than by the means you contemplate; you may marry."
"Nonsense again! Marry! I don't want to marry, and never shall marry."
"That is saying too much; such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the excitement under which you labor."
"It is not saying too much; I know what I feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money-speculation. And I do not want a stranger—unsympathizing, alien, different from me. I want my kindred—those with whom I have full fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother; when you uttered the words, I was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them sincerely."
"I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters, and I know on what my affection for them is grounded—respect for their worth, and admiration of their talents. You, too, have principle and mind; your tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your presence is always agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already, for some time, found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my heart for you as my third and youngest sister."
"Thank you; that contents me for tonight. Now you had better go; for if you stay longer, you will, perhaps, irritate me afresh by some mistrustful scruple."
"And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?"
"No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute."
He smiled approbation; we shook hands, and he took leave.
I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved—as my cousins saw, at length, that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just division of the property—as they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious that, in my place, they would have done precisely what I wished to do—they yielded, at length, so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer. Both coincided in my opinion; I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn out; St. John, Diana, Mary, and I each became possessed of a competency. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 34 | It was near Christmas by the time all was settled; the season of general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt, with pleasure, that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed; they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts. I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school.
Mr. Rivers came up, as—having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door—I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some half dozen of my best scholars, as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for, after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting, of any in Europe. Since those days, I have seen paysannes and Bäuerinnen, and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.
"Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?" asked Mr. Rivers when they were gone. "Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?"
"Doubtless."
"And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?"
"Yes," I said; "but I could not go on forever so. I want to enjoy my own faculties, as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now. Don't recall either my mind or body to the school. I am out of it, and disposed for full holiday."
He looked grave. "What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you going to do?"
"To be active—as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you."
"Do you want her?"
"Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival."
"I understand; I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so; Hannah shall go with you."
"Tell her to be ready by to-morrow, then; and here is the schoolroom key; I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning."
He took it. "You give it up very gleefully," said he; "I don't quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life, have you now?"
"My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?) to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with beeswax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterward I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and, lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnizing of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary, before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau ideal of a welcome when they come."
St. John smiled slightly; still he was dissatisfied.
"It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys."
"The best things the world has!" I interrupted.
"No, Jane, no; this world is not the scene of fruition—do not attempt to make it so; nor of rest—do not turn slothful."
"I mean, on the contrary, to be busy."
"Jane, I excuse you for the present; two months' grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but then I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilized affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength."
I looked at him with surprise. "St. John," I said, "I think you are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?"
"To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping, and of which he will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervor with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don't cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardor for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite, transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?"
"Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I will be happy. Good-by!"
Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked, and so did Hannah; she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amid the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful, by degrees, to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S—, to purchase some new furniture; my cousins having given me carte-blanche to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they were, for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark, handsome, new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully-selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases for the toilet-tables, answered the end—they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlor and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery; I laid canvas on the passage and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright, modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness without.
The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and, ere dusk, fires were lighted up stairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.
St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged; and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls, sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, "If I was at last satisfied with housemaid's work?" I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labors. With some difficulty I got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered up stairs and down stairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so short a time; but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode.
This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case, no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone.
"Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association; he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room? By-the-by, could I tell him where such a book was?"
I showed him the volume on the shelf; he took it down; and, withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.
Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone—at his fine lineaments fixed in study—I comprehended, all at once, that he would hardly make a good husband; that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducing permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which Nature hews her heroes—Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors; a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold, cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place.
"This parlor is not his sphere," I reflected; "the Himalayan ridge, or Caffre bush—even the plague-cursed Guinea coast swamp—would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element; there his faculties stagnate—they cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger—where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude taxed—that he will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's career—I see it now."
"They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open the parlor door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lighted. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door; first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary's cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed, kissed me—then Hannah; patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and, being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house.
They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheering fire light. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlor. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave each one a quiet kiss; said, in a low tone, a few words of welcome; stood a while to be talked to; and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlor, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.
I had lighted their candles to go up stairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and decoration of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich-tinted china vases; they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home.
Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John's taciturnity; he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervor and flow of joy he could not sympathize. The event of the day—that is, the return of Diana and Mary—pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception, irked him; I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night's enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered, with the intimation that "a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away."
"Where does she live, Hannah?"
"Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way."
"Tell him I will go."
"I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel after dark that can be; there's no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a bitter night—the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning."
But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock; he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was, but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny; and was on better terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week; we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana's and Mary's spirits like some life-giving elixir; they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk, and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity, but he escaped from it; he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.
One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him "if his plans were yet unchanged?"
"Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year.
"And Rosamond Oliver?" suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his hand—it was his unsocial custom to read at meals—he closed it, and looked up.
"Rosamond Oliver," said he, "is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of the best connected and most estimable residents in S—, grandson and heir to Sir Frederic Granby; I had the intelligence from her father yesterday."
His sisters looked at each other, and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as glass.
"The match must have been got up hastily," said Diana; "they cannot have known each other long."
"But two months; they met in October at the county ball at S—. But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary. They will be married as soon as S—Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can be refitted for their reception."
The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him; but he seemed so little to need sympathy that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him; his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made little, chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality; in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said—
"You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won."
Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply; after a moment's hesitation, I answered—
"But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?"
"I think not—and if I were, it does not much signify. I shall never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive; my way is now clear; I thank God for it!" So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence.
As our mutual happiness (i.e., Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St. John stayed more at home; he sat with us in the same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of Encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own—that of some eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans.
Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation; if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant. I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day was unfavorable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements.
"Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her," he would say; "she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic; better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust."
And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him; on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.
One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead; I sat reading Schiller, he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way; there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell; so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.
"Jane, what are you doing?"
"Learning German."
"I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee."
"You are not in earnest?"
"In such earnest that I must have it so, and I will tell you why."
He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying; that as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed it on me, because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favor? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.
St. John was not a man to be lightly refused; you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother; she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step. He answered quietly—
"I knew it."
I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master; he expected me to do a great deal, and when I fulfilled his expectations he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind; his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain; I fell under a freezing spell. When he said "Go," I went; "Come," I came; "Do this," I did it. But I did not love my servitude; I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.
One evening when, at bed-time, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicksome humor (she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed:
"St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't treat her as such; you should kiss her too."
She pushed me toward him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head, his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses, or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking; I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony afterward, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.
As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.
Not his ascendency alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad; a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source—the evil of suspense.
Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amid these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapor sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I reentered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it.
In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty on this step answering my end; I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.
I wrote again; there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort; it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered; not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out; and then I felt dark indeed.
A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana tried to cheer me; she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and I suppose by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment; and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him.
One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment; Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the long-looked-for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me; words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlor; Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine Mayday, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said:
"We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed." And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said:
"Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me."
"I will call Diana and Mary."
"No. I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you; put on your things; go out by the kitchen door; take the road toward the head of Marsh-Glen; I will join you in a moment."
I know no medium; I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John's directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him.
The breeze was from the west; it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the tract, we trod a soft turf, mossy, fine, and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom; the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, toward its head, wound to their very core.
"Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down, a waterfall, and where, still a little further, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment, and crag for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence.
I took a seat—St. John stood near me; he looked up the pass and down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which colored it; he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow; he seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt; with his eye he bade farewell to something.
"And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams, when I sleep by the Ganges; and again, in a more remote hour—when another slumber overcomes me—on the shore of a darker stream."
Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for his fatherland! He sat down; for half an hour we never spoke—neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced:
"Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the twentieth of June."
"God will protect you, for you have undertaken his work," I answered.
"Yes," said he, "there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible Master; I am not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms; my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect; it seems strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner—to join in the same enterprise."
"All have not your powers; and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the strong."
"I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them; I address only such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it."
"Those are few in number, and difficult to discover."
"You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and exhort them to the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given—to speak Heaven's message in their ear—to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of his chosen."
"If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it?"
I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me; I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell.
"And what does your heart say?" demanded St. John.
"My heart is mute—my heart is mute," I answered, struck and thrilled.
"Then I must speak for it," continued the deep, relentless voice; "Jane, come with me to India; come as my helpmeet and fellow-laborer."
The glen and sky spun round; the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard a summons from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced "Come over and help us!" But I was no apostle, I could not behold the herald, I could not receive his call.
"Oh, St. John!" I then cried, "have some mercy!"
I appealed to one, who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued:
"God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not personal but mental endowments they have given you; you are formed for labor, not for love. A missionary's wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine; I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign's service."
"I am not fit for it; I have no vocation," I said.
He had calculated on these first objections; he was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its close—resolved, however, that that close should be conquest for him.
"Humility, Jane," said he, "is the ground-work of Christian virtues; you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader; that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane—trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on; do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness."
"I do not understand a missionary life; I have never studied missionary labors."
"There, I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want; I can set you your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning; soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help."
"But my powers—where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!"
"I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met; I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests; and what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labor uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact; you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learned you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas; lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognized a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tracta bility with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it interested me—in the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge the complement of qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic; cease to mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper among Indian woman, your assistance will be to me invaluable."
My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow, sure step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to think before I again hazarded a reply.
"Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.
"I can do what he wants me to do; I am forced to see and acknowledge that," I meditated—"that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? He does not care for that; when my time came to die he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me to him. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land: Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now; nothing so absurd, so weak, as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost; is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say yes—and yet I shudder. Alas! if I join St. John, I abandon half myself; if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I shall satisfy him—to the finest central point and furthest outward circle of his expectations. If I do go with him, if I do make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely; I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me, but he shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes; I can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.
"Consent, then, to his demand is possible; but for one item— one dreadful item. It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe), and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No! such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it; as his sister, I might accompany him—not as his wife; I will tell him so."
I looked toward the knoll; there he lay, still as a prostrate column, his face turned to me, his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me.
"I am ready to go to India, if I may go free."
"Your answer requires a commentary," he said; "it is not clear."
"You have hitherto been my adopted brother; I, your adopted sister; let us continue as such; you and I had better not marry."
He shook his head. "Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were my real sister it would be different, I should take you, and seek no wife. But, as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist; practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your strong sense will guide you."
I did consider, and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should; and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. "St. John," I returned, "I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister; so let us continue."
"We cannot—we cannot," he answered, with short, sharp determination; "it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India; remember—you have said that."
"Conditionally."
"Well, well. To the main point—the departure with me from England, the cooperation with me in my future labors—you do not object. You have already as good as put your hand to the plough; you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view—how the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one purpose, that of fulfilling with effect, with power, the mission of your great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor—not a brother, that is a loose tie, but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister; a sister might any day be taken from me. I want a wife; the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death."
I shuddered as he spoke; I felt his influence in my marrow, his hold on my limbs.
"Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John; seek one fitted to you."
"One fitted to my purpose, you mean, fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with the man's selfish senses—I wish to mate; it is the missionary."
"And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not myself; that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use; I retain them."
"You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will he accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God I advocate; it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance; it must be entire."
"Oh! I will give my heart to God," I said. "You do not want it."
I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell; but revelations were being made in this conference; the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities; I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man erring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection, and took courage. I was with an equal, one with whom I might argue; one whom, if I saw good, I might resist.
He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. "Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to me?" it seemed to say. "What does this signify?"
"Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter," he said, ere long; "one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will give your heart to God; it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavor; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage; the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings: and passing over all minor caprices; all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling; all scruple about the degree, kind, strength, or tenderness of mere personal inclination, you will hasten to enter into that union at once."
"Shall I?" I said, briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding, but not open; at his eyes, bright, and deep, and searching, but never soft; at his tall, imposing figure; and fancied myself, in idea, his wife. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his comrade, all would be right; I would cross oceans with him in that capacity; toil under eastern suns, in Asian deserts, with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage, and devotion, and vigor; accommodate quietly to his master-hood; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man; profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity; my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to; my natural unen slaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind, which would be only mine, to which he never came; and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered, which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down; but as his wife, at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked, forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—this would be unendurable.
"St. John!" I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
"Well?" he answered, icily.
"I repeat, I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become a part of you."
"A part of me you must become," he answered, steadily; "otherwise the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she is married to me? How can we be forever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amid savage tribes—and unwed?"
"Very well," I said, shortly, "under the circumstances; quite as well as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself."
"It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such; to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's heart, and—it would not do."
"It would do," I affirmed, with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant; nothing more—don't fear."
"It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I want. And there are obstacles in the way; they must be hewn down. Jane, you would not repent marrying me; be certain of that; we must be married. I repeat it, there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes."
"I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. "I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer; yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it."
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it is not easy to tell; he could command his countenance thoroughly.
"I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you," he said; "I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn."
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
"Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance—a topic we should never discuss; the very name of love is an apple of discord between us—if the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it."
"No," said he; "it is a long cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great end; but I shall urge you no further at present. To-morrow I leave home for Cambridge; I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight; take that space of time to consider my offer; and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself forever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble, lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith and are worse than infidels!"
He had done. Turning from me, he once more but this time his feelings were all pent in his heart; I was not worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt toward me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission; the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathize; in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience; it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.
[ Looked to river, looked to hill ]
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I—who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him—was hurt by the marked omission, so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.
"I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane," said Diana, "during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage, expecting you—he will make it up."
I have not much pride under such circumstances; I would always rather be happy than dignified, and I ran after him; he stood at the foot of the stairs.
"Good-night, St. John," said I.
"Good-night, Jane," he replied, calmly.
"Then shake hands," I added.
What a cold, loose touch he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him—no cheering smile or generous word; but still the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer, he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 35 | He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He deferred his departure a whole week; and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good, yet stern—a conscientious, yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favor.
Not that St. John harbored a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness—not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle he was superior to the mean gratification of vengeance; he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived, he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear; and their echo toned every answer he gave me.
He did not abstain from conversing with me; he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble. His eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue, a speaking instrument—nothing more.
All this was torture to me—refined, lingering torture. It kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how, if I were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast-falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by malice, but on principle.
The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I spoke to the point at once.
"St. John, I am unhappy, because you are still angry with me. Let us be friends."
"I hope we are friends," was the unmoved reply, while he still watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached.
"No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that."
"Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all good."
"I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers."
"Of course," he said. "Your wish is reasonable; and I am far from regarding you as a stranger."
This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me; to lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.
"Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?"
He now turned quite from the moon, and faced me.
"When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you? What! do you not go to India?"
"You said I could not, unless I married you."
"And you will not marry me? You adhere to that resolution?"
Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?
"No, St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution."
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
"Once more, why this refusal?" he asked.
"Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me now, I reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now."
His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white.
"I should kill—I am killing you? Your words are such as ought not to be used; violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind; they merit severe reproof. They would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow, even until seventy-and-seven times."
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression; I had burned it in.
"Now you will indeed hate me," I said. "It is useless to attempt to conciliate you; I see I have made an eternal enemy of you."
A fresh wrong did these words inflict; the worse, because they touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
"You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand; "I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed I have not."
Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. "And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I presume?" said he, after a considerable pause.
"Yes I will, as your assistant," I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell; only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last.
"I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you in such terms as I should have thought would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your sake."
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. "Keep to common sense, St. John; you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked; for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife."
Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly—
"A female curate who is not my wife would never suit me. With me, then, it seems you cannot go; but if you are sincere in your offer I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary whose wife needs a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonor of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join."
Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard, and much too despotic, for the occasion. I replied—
"There is no dishonor, no breach of promise, no desertion, in the case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate."
"Ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip.
"I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me, would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitely resolve on quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it."
"What do you mean?"
"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt; and I can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed."
"I know where your heart turns, and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it; now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?"
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
"Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?"
"I must find out what has become of him."
"It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognized in you one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees; His will be done."
He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight.
On reentering the parlor, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I; she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.
"Jane," she said, "you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on hand. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being—"
She paused—I did not speak; soon she resumed—
"That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you, I am sure; he has long distinguished you, by a notice and interest he never showed any one else—to what end? I wish he loved you—does he, Jane?"
I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; "No, Di, not one whit."
"Then why does he follow you so with his eyes—and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him."
"He does—he has asked me to be his wife."
Diana clapped her hands. "That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won't you? And then he will stay in England."
"Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-laborer in his Indian toils."
"What! he wishes you to go to India?"
"Yes."
"Madness!" she exclaimed. "You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go; you have not consented—have you, Jane?"
"I have refused to marry him—"
"And have, consequently, displeased him?" she suggested.
"Deeply; he will never forgive me, I fear; yet I offered to accompany him as his sister."
"It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue—where fatigue kills even the strong; and you are weak. St. John—you know him—would urge you to impossibilities; with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and, unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him, then, Jane?"
"Not as a husband."
"And yet he is a handsome fellow."
"And I am so plain, you see, Di. We should never suit."
"Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta." And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
"I must indeed," I said; "for when, just now, I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried, as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such."
"What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?"
"You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office, he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labor—not for love—which is true, no doubt. But in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Di, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?"
"Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!"
"And then," I continued, "though I have only sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would."
"And yet St. John is a good man," said Diana.
"He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana." And I hastened up stairs as I saw him entering the garden.
But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme; the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner—one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more.
For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen, while from his lips fell the words of the Bible; never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full—never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God; and tonight that voice took a more solemn tone, that manner a more thrilling meaning, as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table); as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come to dwell with men—how he would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away.
The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them, especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them his eye had turned on me.
"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But," was slowly, distinctly read, "the fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
Henceforward I knew what fate St. John feared for me.
A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book oflife, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor—which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered, all his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted-guidance for wanderers from the fold—a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed, the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely, others who heard him plead for it could not but feel it too.
The prayer over, we took leave of him; he was to go at a very early hour in the morning. Diana and Mary, having kissed him, left the room, in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him; I tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey.
"Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight; that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim—to do all things to the glory of God. My master was long suffering; so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath; repent—resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is day—warned that 'the night cometh when no man shall work.' Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!"
He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken earnestly, mildly; his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep—or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not, whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time, I was unconscious of folly at the instant.
I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralyzed. The impossible—i.e., my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming the possible. All was changing utterly, with a sudden sweep. Religion called—angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a scroll-death's gates opening, showed eternity beyond; it seemed that, for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim room was full of visions.
"Could you decide now?" asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones; he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John's wrath; I grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer; it was only elevated.
"I could decide if I were but certain," I answered; "were I but convinced that it is God's will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here and now—come afterward what would!"
"My prayers are heard!" ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me; he surrounded me with his arm, almost as if he loved me (I say almost—I knew the difference—for I had felt what it was to be loved; but like him, I had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty); I contended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, fervently longed to do what was right, and only that. "Show me—show me the path!" I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement, the reader shall judge.
All the house was still, for I believe all except St. John and myself were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out; the room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick; I heard it throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling; it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant; eye and ear waited, while the flesh quivered on my bones.
"What have you heard! What do you see?" asked St. John. I saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry,
"Jane! Jane! Jane!" nothing more.
"Oh, God! what is it?" I gasped.
I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room—nor in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where or whence, forever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe—wildly, eerily, urgently.
"I am coming!" I cried. "Wait for me! Oh, I will come!" I flew to the door, and looked into the passage; it was dark. I ran out into the garden; it was void.
"Where are you?" I exclaimed.
The hills beyond Marsh-Glen sent the answer faintly back, "Where are you!" I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs; all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush.
"Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate. "This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft; it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did—no miracle—but her best."
I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It was my turn to assume ascendency. My powers were in play, and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me; I must, and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber, locked myself in, fell on my knees, and prayed in my way—a different way to St. John's—but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit, and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and lay down, unscared, enlightened—eager but for the daylight. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 36 | The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence. Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door; I feared he would knock—no, but a slip of paper was passed under the door. I took it up. It bore these words:
"You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian's cross and the angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation; the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak. I shall pray for you hourly. Yours, St. John."
"My spirit," I answered mentally, "is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be strong enough to search—inquire—to grope an outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty."
It was the first of June, yet the morning was overcast and chilly; rain beat fast on my casement. I heard the front door open and St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He took the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcross; there he would meet the coach.
"In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin," thought I; "I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some to see and ask after in England, before I depart forever."
It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval in walking softly about my room and pondering the visitation which had given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before; it seemed in me—not in the external world. I asked, was it a mere nervous impression—a delusion? I could not conceive or believe it; it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas' prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell, and loosed its bands—it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprung trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart, and through my spirit; which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body.
"Ere many days," I said, as I terminated my musings, "I will know something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters have proved of no avail—personal inquiry shall replace them."
At breakfast, I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going on a journey, and should be absent at least four days.
"Alone, Jane?" they asked.
"Yes; it was to see, or hear news of, a friend about whom I had for some time been uneasy."
They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had believed me to be without any friends save them; for, indeed, I had often said so; but with their true natural delicacy, they abstained from comment; except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate.
It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with no inquiries—no surmises. Having once explained to them that I could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in the silence with which I pursued them; according to me the privilege of free action, I should, under similar circumstances, have accorded them.
I left Moor House at three o'clock P.M., and soon after four I stood at the foot of the sign-post at Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amid the silence of those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered—not now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.
It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low, pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue compared with the stern north-midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape; I was sure we were near my bourn.
"How far is Thornfield Hall from here?" I asked of the hostler.
"Just two miles, ma'am, across the fields."
"My journey is closed," I thought to myself. I got out of the coach, gave a box I had into the hostler's charge, to be kept till I called for it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going; the brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt letters, "The Rochester Arms." My heart leaped up; I was already on my master's very lands. It fell again; the thought struck it:
"Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you know; and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, toward which you hasten, who beside him is there? His lunatic wife; and you have nothing to do with him; you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost your labor—you had better go no further," urged the monitor. "Ask information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek; they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home."
The suggestion was sensible; and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before me—the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted, with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield; ere I well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them!
At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me; on I hastened. Another field crossed—a lane threaded—and there were the court-yard walls—the back offices; the house itself, the rookery still hid.
"My first view of it shall be in front," I determined, "where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my master's very window; perhaps he will be standing at it—he rises early; perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him!—but a moment! Surely, in that case I should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell—I am not certain. And if I did—what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me?—I rave; perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south."
I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard—turned its angle; there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone pillars, crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up; battlements, windows, long front—all from this sheltered station were at my command.
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I wonder what they thought; they must have considered I was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze toward it. "What affectation of diffidence was this at first!" they might have demanded. "What stupid regardlessness now!"
Hear an illustration, reader.
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses—fancying she has stirred; he withdraws; not for worlds would he be seen. All is still—he again advances—he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features; he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty—warm and blooming and lovely in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dare not, a moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps, and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter—by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly; he finds she is stone dead.
I looked with timorous joy toward a stately house; I saw a blackened ruin.
No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed! to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for doors opening—to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk! The lawn, the grounds, were trodden and waste; the portal yawned void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows; no roof, no battlements, no chimneys—all had crashed in.
And there was the silence of death about it; the solitude of a lonesome wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never received an answer; as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church-aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the hall had fallen—by conflagration; but how kindled? What story belonged to this disaster? What loss, besides mortar, and marble, and woodwork, had followed upon it? Had life been wrecked, as well as property? If so, whose? Dreadful question; there was no one here to answer it—not even dumb sign, mute token.
In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amid the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation; grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And, oh! where, meantime, was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to the gray church tower near the gates, and I asked, "Is he with Darner de Rochester, sharing the shelter of his narrow marble house?"
Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but at the inn; and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself brought my breakfast into the parlor. I requested him to shut the door and sit down; I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers. And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-looking middle-aged man.
"You know Thornfield Hall, of course?" I managed to say at last.
"Yes, ma'am; I lived there once."
"Did you?" Not in my time, I thought; you are a stranger to me.
"I was the late Mr. Rochester's butler," he added.
The late! I seemed to have received with full force the blow I had been trying to evade.
"The late!" I gasped. "Is he dead?"
"I mean the father of Mr. Edward, the present gentleman," he explained. I breathed again; my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words that Mr. Edward—my Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he was!) was at least alive; was, in short, "the present gentleman," (gladdening words!) it seemed I could hear all that was to come—whatever the disclosures might be—with comparative tranquility. Since he was not in the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he was at the Antipodes.
"Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?" I asked, knowing, of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the direct question as to where he really was.
"No, ma'am—oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last autumn. Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin; it was burned down just about harvest time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed; hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle; I witnessed it myself."
"At dead of night!" I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield. "Was it known how it originated?" I demanded.
"They guessed, ma'am; they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware," he continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, "that there was a lady—a—a lunatic, kept in the house?"
"I have heard something of it."
"She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am; people even for some years were not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her; they only knew by rumor that such a person was at the hall; and who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad; and some believed she had been his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year since—a very queer thing."
I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavored to recall him to the main fact.
"And this lady?"
"This lady, ma'am," he answered, "turned out to be Mr. Rochester's wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—"
"But the fire?" I suggested.
"I'm coming to that, ma'am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was; he was after her continually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, ma'am—and he set store on her past everything; for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I've heard Leah, the housemaid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and, you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched: well, he would marry her."
"You shall tell me this part of the story another time," I said; "but now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it?"
"You've hit it, ma'am; it's quite certain that it was her, and nobody but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her, called Mrs. Poole—an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy; but for one fault—a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons—she kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a drop over-much. It's excusable, for she had a hard life of it; but still it was dangerous; for, when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep, after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house, doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had nearly burned her husband in his bed once; but I don't know about that. However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next her own; and then she got down to a lower story, and made her way to the chamber that had been the governess'—(she was like as if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her)—and she kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he could never hear a word of her; and he grew quite savage—quite savage on his disappointment; he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life; and she deserved it—she was a very good woman. Miss Adèle, a ward he had, was put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up, like a hermit, at the hall."
"What! did he not leave England?"
"Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones of the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the grounds and in the orchard, as if he had lost his senses—which it is my opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, ma'am. He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had. I knew him from a boy, you see; and for my part I have often wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she came to Thornfield Hall."
"Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out!"
"Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them down himself—and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was standing, waving her arms above the battlements, and shouting out till they could hear her a mile off; I heard her, and saw her with my own eyes. She was a big woman, and had long black hair; we could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the skylight on to the roof; we heard him call 'Bertha!' We saw him approach her; and then, ma'am, she yelled, and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement."
"Dead?"
"Dead? Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered."
"Good God!"
"You may well say so, ma'am; it was frightful!"
He shuddered.
"And afterward?" I urged.
"Well, ma'am, afterward the house was burned to the ground; there are only some bits of wall standing now."
"Were any other lives lost?"
"No—perhaps it would have been better if there had."
"What do you mean?"
"Poor Mr. Edward!" he ejaculated. "I little thought ever to have seen it! Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his first marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living; but I pity him, for my part."
"You said he was alive?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, yes—he is alive; but many think he had better be dead."
"Why? How?" My blood was again running cold.
"Where is he?" I demanded. "Is he in England?"
"Ay—ay—he is in England; he can't get out of England, I fancy—he's a fixture now."
What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it!
"He is stone-blind," he said at last. "Yes—he is stone-blind-is Mr. Edward."
I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity.
"It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way, ma'am; he wouldn't leave the house till every one else was out before him. As he came down the great stair-case at last, after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crash—all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt; a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed; he lost the sight of that also. He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple."
"Where is he? Where does he now live?"
"At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off; quite a desolate spot."
"Who is with him?"
"Old John and his wife; he would have none else. He is quite broken down, they say."
"Have you any sort of conveyance?"
"We have a chaise, ma'am—a very handsome chaise."
"Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay both you and him twice the hire you usually demand." |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 37 | The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house, but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot.
To this house I came, just ere dark, on an evening marked by the characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest-aisle, between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling, but it stretched on and on, it wound far and further; no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.
I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me; I looked round in search of another road. There was none; all was interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage—no opening anywhere.
I proceeded; at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees, so dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amid a space of inclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow; the front-door was narrow too; one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate spot." It was as still as a church on a week-day—the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.
"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 recognized 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 blended with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lids so sternly sealed beneath it; but not yet; I would not accost him yet.
He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly toward 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 round him. He met but vacancy still, for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He relinquished the endeavor, folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this moment John approached 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, reentering 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 'only 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 turnpike-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 parlor-bell rung.
"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 rung 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 parlor-door. The tray shook as I held it; the water spilled from the glass; my heart struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it behind me.
This parlor looked gloomy; a neglected handful of fire burned low in the grate, and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantle-piece, 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 on. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in, then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded toward 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 spilled 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 this 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 is 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 blessed after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night, when I had clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus—and felt that she loved me, and trusted 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 rouse 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."
"And you do not lie dead in some ditch, under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast among strangers?"
"No, sir; I am an independent woman now."
"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."
"Ah, this is practical—this is real!" he cried. "I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and piquant, as well as soft; it cheers my withered heart; it puts life into it. What, Janet! Are you an independent woman, a rich woman?"
"Quite rich, sir. If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own, close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlor when you want company of an evening."
"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?"
"I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich; I am my own mistress."
"And you will stay with me?"
"Certainly—unless you object. I will be your neighbor, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely; I will be your companion—to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live."
He replied not; he seemed serious—abstracted; he sighed; he half opened his lips as if to speak; he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had been too officious in my offers of companionship and aid; perhaps I had too rashly overleaped conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had, indeed, made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife; an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him, and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms—but he eagerly snatched me closer.
"No—no—Jane; you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence—the sweetness of your consolation; I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself—I must have you. The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you; it will be satisfied; or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."
"Well, sir, I will stay with you; I have said so."
"Yes—but you understand one thing by staying with me, and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair—to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me, no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you; do you think so? Come—tell me."
"I will think what you like, sir; I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better."
"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet; you are young, and must marry one day."
"I don't care about being married."
"You should care, Janet; if I were what I once was I would try to make you care—but—a sightless block!"
He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage; these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation.
"It is time some one undertook to rehumanize you," said I, parting his thick and long-uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain; your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed."
"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere stump—a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?"
"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of fire on your forehead; and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this, and making too much of you."
"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm and my cicatrized visage."
"Did you? Don't tell me so—lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?"
"Yes; with the right eye I see a glow, a ruddy haze."
"And you see the candles?"
"Very dimly; each is a luminous cloud."
"Can you see me?"
"No, my fairy; but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you."
"When do you take supper?"
"I never take supper."
"But you shall have some tonight. I am hungry; so are you, I dare say, only you forget."
Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order; I prepared him likewise a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity, with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature; in his presence I thoroughly lived, and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead; his lineaments softened and warmed.
After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave him only very partial replies; it was too late to enter into particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord, to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart; my sole present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was, and yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me, then say, "Jane."
"You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?"
"I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester."
"Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you; I asked a question, expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear."
"Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray."
"And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat; and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes, for her restoration I longed far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be, that Jane is with me and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear, I shall find her no more."
A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something which should make them grow as broad and black as ever.
"Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me, passing like a shadow, whither and how, to me unknown; and for me, remaining afterward undiscoverable?"
"Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?"
"What for, Jane?"
'Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand. You talk of my being a fairy; but I am sure you are more like a brownie."
"Am I hideous, Jane?"
"Very, sir; you always were, you know."
"Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned."
"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you, a hundred times better; people possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your life; quite more refined and exalted."
"Who the deuce have you been with?"
"If you twist in that way, you will make me pull the hair out of your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality."
"Who have you been with, Jane?"
"You shall not get it out of me tonight, sir; you must wait till to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast-table to finish it. By-the-by, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water, then; I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of fried ham."
"You mocking changeling, fairy-born and human-bred! You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp."
"There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you; I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good-night."
"Just one word, Jane; were there only ladies in the house where you have been?"
I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran up stairs. "A good idea!" I thought, with glee. "I see I have the means of fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come."
Very early the next morning, I heard him up and astir, wandering from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down, I heard the question, "Is Miss Eyre here?" Then, "Which room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything, and when she will come down."
I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair, still, but not at rest; expectant evidently, the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be relighted, and, alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression; he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick; still I accosted him with what vivacity I could.
"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it; you shall have a walk soon."
I had wakened the glow; his features beamed.
"Oh, you are indeed there, my sky-lark! Come to me. You are not gone; not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood; but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one); all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence."
The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose; I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast.
Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet and wild wood, into some cheerful fields; I described to him how brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot—a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee; why should I, when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us; all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms—
"Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you; and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent? A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now."
Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict unnecessary pain; the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished.
I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my way; I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in him; he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant; he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed to him.
"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I answered; and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at Moor House, how I had obtained the office of school mistress, &c. The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken up.
"This St. John, then, is your cousin?"
"Yes."
"You have spoken of him often; did you like him?"
"He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him."
"A good man? Does that mean a respectable, well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?"
"St. John was only twenty-nine, sir."
"'Jeune encore,' as the French say. Is he a person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice than in his prowess in virtue?"
"He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to perform."
"But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well; but you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"
"He talks little, sir; what he does say is ever to the point. His brain is first-rate, I should think; not impressible, but vigorous."
"Is he an able man, then?"
"Truly able."
"A thoroughly educated man?"
"St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar."
"His manners, I think you said, are not to your taste? priggish and parsonic?"
"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentleman-like."
"His appearance—I forget what description you gave of his appearance; a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?"
"St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man; tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile."
(Aside): "Damn him!" (To me): "Did you like him, Jane?"
"Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him; but you asked me that before."
I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him; she stung him; but the sting was salutary; it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake.
"Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?" was the next somewhat unexpected observation.
"Why not, Mr. Rochester?"
"The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo; he is present to your imagination—tall, fair, blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan —a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered; and blind and lame in the bargain."
"I never thought of it before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir."
"Well—you can leave me, ma'am; but before you go (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two." He paused.
"What questions, Mr. Rochester?"
Then followed this cross-examination:
"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his cousin?"
"Yes."
"You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?"
"Daily."
"He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever; for you are a talented creature."
"He approved of them—yes."
"He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary."
"I don't know about that."
"You had a little cottage near the school, you say; did he ever come there to see you?"
"Now and then."
"Of an evening?"
"Once or twice."
A pause.
"How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?"
"Five months."
"Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?"
"Yes; the back parlor was both his study and ours; he sat near the window, and we by the table."
"Did he study much?"
"A good deal."
"What?"
"Hindostanee."
"And what did you do meantime?"
"I learned German, at first."
"Did he teach you?"
"He did not understand German."
"Did he teach you nothing?"
"A little Hindostanee."
"Rivers taught you Hindostanee?"
"Yes, sir."
"And his sisters also?"
"No."
"Only you?"
"Only me."
"Did you ask to learn?"
"No."
"He wished to teach you?"
"Yes."
A second pause.
"Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?"
"He intended me to go with him to India."
"Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?"
"He asked me to marry him."
"That is a fiction—an impudent invention to vex me."
"I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth; he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be."
"Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?"
"Because I am comfortable there."
"No, Jane, you are not comfortable there; because your heart is not with me; it is with this cousin—this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even when she left me; that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me; go and marry Rivers."
"Shake me off, then, sir—push me away; for I'll not leave you of my own accord."
"Jane, I ever like your tone of voice; it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forgot that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool—go—"
"Where must I go, sir?"
"Your own way—with the husband you have chosen."
"Who is that?"
"You know—this St. John Rivers."
"He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me; I do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir; I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me—no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth—only a few useful mental points. Then, must I leave you, sir, to go to him?"
I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled.
"What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?"
"Absolutely, sir. Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad; I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir; it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever."
Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect.
"My seared vision! My crippled strength!" he murmured regretfully.
I caressed in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.
"I am no better than the old, lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard," he remarked, ere long. "And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?"
"You are no ruin, sir—no lightning-struck tree; you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean toward you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop."
Again he smiled; I gave him comfort.
"You speak of friends, Jane?" he asked.
"Yes; of friends," I answered, rather hesitatingly; for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He helped me.
"Ah! Jane. But I want a wife."
"Do you, sir?"
"Yes; is it news to you?"
"Of course; you said nothing about it before."
"Is it unwelcome news?"
"That depends on circumstances, sir—on your choice."
"Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision."
"Choose then, sir—her who loves you best."
"I will at least choose—her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?"
"Yes, sir."
"A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?"
"Yes, sir."
"A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?"
"Yes, sir."
"Truly, Jane?"
"Most truly, sir."
"Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!"
"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life—if ever I thought a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer—if ever I wished a righteous wish, I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."
"Because you delight in sacrifice."
"Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value—to press my lips to what I love—to repose on what I trust; is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice."
"And to bear with my infirmities, Jane; to overlook my deficiencies."
"Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector."
"Hitherto I have hated to be helped—to be led; henceforth, I feel, I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me; do I suit her?"
"To the finest fibre of my nature, sir."
"The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for; we must be married instantly."
He looked and spoke with eagerness; his old impetuosity was rising.
"We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane; there is but the license to get—then we marry—"
"Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch."
"Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward; I have no use for it."
"It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel hungry?"
"The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels, now; all that is not worth a fillip."
"The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still; it is quite hot."
"Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since the day I lost my only treasure; as a memento of her."
"We will go home through the wood; that will be the shadiest way."
He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.
"Jane! you think me, I dare say, an irreligious dog; but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer; judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did you wrong; I would have sullied my innocent flower—breathed guilt on its purity; the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation; instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick upon me; I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me forever. You know I was proud of my strength; but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane—only of late—I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray; very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.
"Some days since—nay, I can number them, four; it was last Monday night, a singular mood came over me, one in which grief replaced frenzy; sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night, perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o'clock, ere I retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.
"I was in my own room and sitting by the window, which was open; it soothed me to feel the balmy night air, though I could see no stars, and only by a vague, luminous haze knew the presence of a moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented, and might not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I acknowledged; that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my lips, in the words, 'Jane! Jane! Jane!'"
"Did you speak these words aloud?"
"I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me he would have thought me mad, I pronounced them with such frantic energy."
"And it was last Monday night; somewhere near midnight?"
"Yes; but the time is of no consequence; what followed is the strange point. You will think me superstitious—some superstition I have in my blood, and always had; nevertheless, this is true—true, at least, it is that I heard what I now relate.
"As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice—I cannot tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it was—replied, 'I am coming; wait for me!' and a moment after, went whispering on the wind, the words, 'Where are you?'
"I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture, these words opened to my mind; yet it is difficult to express what I want to express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull and lies unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken among mountains, for I heard a hillsent echo repeat the words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow; I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe, we must have met. You, no doubt, were at that hour in unconscious sleep, Jane; perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents—as certain as I live—they were yours!"
Reader, it was on Monday night, near midnight, that I, too, had received the mysterious summons; those were the very words by which I had replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer; and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things, then, and pondered them in my heart.
"You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision; something that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God!"
He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.
"I thank my Maker, that in the midst of judgment he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!"
Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder; being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward. |
Jane Eyre | Charlotte Bronte | [
"romance",
"historical fiction",
"gothic"
] | Conclusion | Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had; he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said:
"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent, phlegmatic order of people to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me; the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire did for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process; but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only,
"Have you, miss? Well, for sure!"
A short time after she pursued: "I seed you go out with the master, but I didn't know you were gone to church to be wed"; and she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.
"I telled Mary how it would be," he said; "I knew what Mr. Edward"—(John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore he often gave him his Christian name)—"I knew what Mr. Edward would do, and I was certain he would not wait long neither; and he's done right, for aught I know. I wish you joy, miss!" and he politely pulled his fore-lock.
"Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this." I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught the words—
"She'll happen do better for him nor ony o' t' grand ladies." And again, "If she ben't one o' th' handsomest, she's noan faâl and varry good-natured; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody may see that."
I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had done; fully explained also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honey-moon, and then she would come and see me.
"She had better not wait till then, Jane," said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him; "if she does she will be too late, for our honey-moon will shine our lifelong; its beams will only fade over your grave or mine."
How St. John received the news I don't know; he never answered the letter in which I communicated it; yet six months after, he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since; he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in the world, and only mind earthly things.
You have not quite forgotten little Adèle, have you, reader? I had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester to go and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin; she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study too severe, for a child of her age; I took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another—my husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system; and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort; she soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion; docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.
My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done.
I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blessed—blessed beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am; ever more absolutely bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward's society; he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long; to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him; all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character; perfect concord is the result.
Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near—that knit us so very close; for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape before us; of the weather around us—and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary conducting him where he wished to go; of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad—because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance; he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.
One morning, at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said, "Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck?"
I had a gold watch-chain; I answered, "Yes."
"And have you a pale blue dress on?"
I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was sure of it.
He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist, and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot see very distinctly; he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand; the sky is no longer a blank to him—the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were-large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy.
My Edward and I, then, are happy; and the more so, because those we most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both married. Alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see them. Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good man. Mary's is a clergyman, a college friend of her brother's, and, from his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. Both Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved by them.
As to St. John Rivers, he left England; he went to India. He entered on the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amid rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labors for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Great-heart, who guards his pilgrim-convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the Apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says—"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth—who stand without fault before the throne of God; who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb; who are called, and chosen, and faithful.
St. John is unmarried; he never will marry now. Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close; his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I received from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy. He anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger's hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called, at length, into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John's last hour. His mind will be unclouded; his heart will be undaunted; his hope will be sure; his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this:
"My Master," he says, "has forewarned me. Daily he announces more distinctly—'Surely I come quickly'; and hourly I more eagerly respond—'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!'" |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 1 | 1801.—I have just returned from a visit to my landlord—the solitary neighbour that I shall be troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country! In all England, I do not believe that I could have fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthropist's heaven: and Mr. Heathcliff and I are such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us. A capital fellow! He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.
"Mr. Heathcliff?" I said.
A nod was the answer.
"Mr. Lockwood, your new tenant, sir. I do myself the honour of calling as soon as possible after my arrival, to express the hope that I have not inconvenienced you by my perseverance in soliciting the occupation of Thrushcross Grange: I heard yesterday you had had some thoughts—"
"Thrushcross Grange is my own, sir," he interrupted, wincing. "I should not allow any one to inconvenience me, if I could hinder it—walk in!"
The "walk in" was uttered with closed teeth, and expressed the sentiment, "Go to the Deuce:" even the gate over which he leant manifested no sympathising movement to the words; and I think that circumstance determined me to accept the invitation: I felt interested in a man who seemed more exaggeratedly reserved than myself.
When he saw my horse's breast fairly pushing the barrier, he did put out his hand to unchain it, and then sullenly preceded me up the causeway, calling, as we entered the court,—"Joseph, take Mr. Lockwood's horse; and bring up some wine."
"Here we have the whole establishment of domestics, I suppose," was the reflection suggested by this compound order. "No wonder the grass grows up between the flags, and cattle are the only hedge–cutters."
Joseph was an elderly, nay, an old man: very old, perhaps, though hale and sinewy. "The Lord help us!" he soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure, while relieving me of my horse: looking, meantime, in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of divine aid to digest his dinner, and his pious ejaculation had no reference to my unexpected advent.
Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. "Wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.
Before passing the threshold, I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date '1500,' and the name "Hareton Earnshaw." I would have made a few comments, and requested a short history of the place from the surly owner; but his attitude at the door appeared to demand my speedy entrance, or complete departure, and I had no desire to aggravate his impatience previous to inspecting the penetralium.
One stop brought us into the family sitting–room, without any introductory lobby or passage: they call it here "the house" pre–eminently. It includes kitchen and parlour, generally; but I believe at Wuthering Heights the kitchen is forced to retreat altogether into another quarter: at least I distinguished a chatter of tongues, and a clatter of culinary utensils, deep within; and I observed no signs of roasting, boiling, or baking, about the huge fireplace; nor any glitter of copper saucepans and tin cullenders on the walls. One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, interspersed with silver jugs and tankards, towering row after row, on a vast oak dresser, to the very roof. The latter had never been under–drawn: its entire anatomy lay bare to an inquiring eye, except where a frame of wood laden with oatcakes and clusters of legs of beef, mutton, and ham, concealed it. Above the chimney were sundry villainous old guns, and a couple of horse–pistols: and, by way of ornament, three gaudily–painted canisters disposed along its ledge. The floor was of smooth, white stone; the chairs, high–backed, primitive structures, painted green: one or two heavy black ones lurking in the shade. In an arch under the dresser reposed a huge, liver–coloured bitch pointer, surrounded by a swarm of squealing puppies; and other dogs haunted other recesses.
The apartment and furniture would have been nothing extraordinary as belonging to a homely, northern farmer, with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee–breeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his arm–chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner. But Mr. Heathcliff forms a singular contrast to his abode and style of living. He is a dark–skinned gipsy in aspect, in dress and manners a gentleman: that is, as much a gentleman as many a country squire: rather slovenly, perhaps, yet not looking amiss with his negligence, because he has an erect and handsome figure; and rather morose. Possibly, some people might suspect him of a degree of under–bred pride; I have a sympathetic chord within that tells me it is nothing of the sort: I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling—to manifestations of mutual kindliness. He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I'm running on too fast: I bestow my own attributes over–liberally on him. Mr. Heathcliff may have entirely dissimilar reasons for keeping his hand out of the way when he meets a would–be acquaintance, to those which actuate me. Let me hope my constitution is almost peculiar: my dear mother used to say I should never have a comfortable home; and only last summer I proved myself perfectly unworthy of one.
While enjoying a month of fine weather at the sea–coast, I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature: a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I "never told my love" vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me at last, and looked a return—the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame—shrunk icily into myself, like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther; till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.
I took a seat at the end of the hearthstone opposite that towards which my landlord advanced, and filled up an interval of silence by attempting to caress the canine mother, who had left her nursery, and was sneaking wolfishly to the back of my legs, her lip curled up, and her white teeth watering for a snatch. My caress provoked a long, guttural gnarl.
"You'd better let the dog alone," growled Mr. Heathcliff in unison, checking fiercer demonstrations with a punch of his foot. "She's not accustomed to be spoiled—not kept for a pet." Then, striding to a side door, he shouted again, "Joseph!"
Joseph mumbled indistinctly in the depths of the cellar, but gave no intimation of ascending; so his master dived down to him, leaving me vis–a–vis the ruffianly bitch and a pair of grim shaggy sheep–dogs, who shared with her a jealous guardianship over all my movements. Not anxious to come in contact with their fangs, I sat still; but, imagining they would scarcely understand tacit insults, I unfortunately indulged in winking and making faces at the trio, and some turn of my physiognomy so irritated madam, that she suddenly broke into a fury and leapt on my knees. I flung her back, and hastened to interpose the table between us. This proceeding aroused the whole hive: half–a–dozen four–footed fiends, of various sizes and ages, issued from hidden dens to the common centre. I felt my heels and coat–laps peculiar subjects of assault; and parrying off the larger combatants as effectually as I could with the poker, I was constrained to demand, aloud, assistance from some of the household in re–establishing peace.
Mr. Heathcliff and his man climbed the cellar steps with vexatious phlegm: I don't think they moved one second faster than usual, though the hearth was an absolute tempest of worrying and yelping. Happily, an inhabitant of the kitchen made more despatch: a lusty dame, with tucked–up gown, bare arms, and fire–flushed cheeks, rushed into the midst of us flourishing a frying–pan: and used that weapon, and her tongue, to such purpose, that the storm subsided magically, and she only remained, heaving like a sea after a high wind, when her master entered on the scene.
"What the devil is the matter?" he asked, eyeing me in a manner that I could ill endure, after this inhospitable treatment.
"What the devil, indeed!" I muttered. "The herd of possessed swine could have had no worse spirits in them than those animals of yours, sir. You might as well leave a stranger with a brood of tigers!"
"They won't meddle with persons who touch nothing," he remarked, putting the bottle before me, and restoring the displaced table. "The dogs do right to be vigilant. Take a glass of wine?"
"No, thank you."
"Not bitten, are you?"
"If I had been, I would have set my signet on the biter." Heathcliff's countenance relaxed into a grin.
"Come, come," he said, "you are flurried, Mr. Lockwood. Here, take a little wine. Guests are so exceedingly rare in this house that I and my dogs, I am willing to own, hardly know how to receive them. Your health, sir?"
I bowed and returned the pledge; beginning to perceive that it would be foolish to sit sulking for the misbehaviour of a pack of curs; besides, I felt loth to yield the fellow further amusement at my expense; since his humour took that turn. He—probably swayed by prudential consideration of the folly of offending a good tenant—relaxed a little in the laconic style of chipping off his pronouns and auxiliary verbs, and introduced what he supposed would be a subject of interest to me,—a discourse on the advantages and disadvantages of my present place of retirement. I found him very intelligent on the topics we touched; and before I went home, I was encouraged so far as to volunteer another visit to–morrow. He evidently wished no repetition of my intrusion. I shall go, notwithstanding. It is astonishing how sociable I feel myself compared with him. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 2 | Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. On coming up from dinner, however, (N.B.—I dine between twelve and one o'clock; the housekeeper, a matronly lady, taken as a fixture along with the house, could not, or would not, comprehend my request that I might be served at five)—on mounting the stairs with this lazy intention, and stepping into the room, I saw a servant–girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal–scuttles, and raising an infernal dust as she extinguished the flames with heaps of cinders. This spectacle drove me back immediately; I took my hat, and, after a four–miles' walk, arrived at Heathcliff's garden–gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow–shower.
On that bleak hill–top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. Being unable to remove the chain, I jumped over, and, running up the flagged causeway bordered with straggling gooseberry–bushes, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
"Wretched inmates!" I ejaculated, mentally, "you deserve perpetual isolation from your species for your churlish inhospitality. At least, I would not keep my doors barred in the day–time. I don't care—I will get in!" So resolved, I grasped the latch and shook it vehemently. Vinegar–faced Joseph projected his head from a round window of the barn.
"What are ye for?" he shouted. "T" maister's down i' t' fowld. Go round by th' end o' t' laith, if ye went to spake to him.'
"Is there nobody inside to open the door?" I hallooed, responsively.
"There's nobbut t" missis; and shoo'll not oppen "t an ye mak" yer flaysome dins till neeght.'
"Why? Cannot you tell her whom I am, eh, Joseph?"
"Nor–ne me! I'll hae no hend wi't," muttered the head, vanishing.
The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork, appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash–house, and a paved area containing a coal–shed, pump, and pigeon–cot, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received. It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal, peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the "missis," an individual whose existence I had never previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and remained motionless and mute.
"Rough weather!" I remarked. "I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must bear the consequence of your servants" leisure attendance: I had hard work to make them hear me.'
She never opened her mouth. I stared—she stared also: at any rate, she kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.
"Sit down," said the young man, gruffly. "He'll be in soon."
I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of owning my acquaintance.
"A beautiful animal!" I commenced again. "Do you intend parting with the little ones, madam?"
"They are not mine," said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than Heathcliff himself could have replied.
"Ah, your favourites are among these?" I continued, turning to an obscure cushion full of something like cats.
"A strange choice of favourites!" she observed scornfully.
Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.
"You should not have come out," she said, rising and reaching from the chimney–piece two of the painted canisters.
Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding; small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression, that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The canisters were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in counting his gold.
"I don't want your help," she snapped; "I can get them for myself."
"I beg your pardon!" I hastened to reply.
"Were you asked to tea?" she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the pot.
"I shall be glad to have a cup," I answered.
"Were you asked?" she repeated.
"No," I said, half smiling. "You are the proper person to ask me."
She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet; her forehead corrugated, and her red under–lip pushed out, like a child's ready to cry.
Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude, entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff; his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned like those of a common labourer: still his bearing was free, almost haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on the lady of the house. In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some measure, from my uncomfortable state.
"You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!" I exclaimed, assuming the cheerful; "and I fear I shall be weather–bound for half an hour, if you can afford me shelter during that space."
"Half an hour?" he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; "I wonder you should select the thick of a snow–storm to ramble about in. Do you know that you run a risk of being lost in the marshes? People familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and I can tell you there is no chance of a change at present."
"Perhaps I can get a guide among your lads, and he might stay at the Grange till morning—could you spare me one?"
"No, I could not."
"Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own sagacity."
"Umph!"
"Are you going to mak" the tea?' demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.
"Is he to have any?" she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.
"Get it ready, will you?" was the answer, uttered so savagely that I started. The tone in which the words were said revealed a genuine bad nature. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow. When the preparations were finished, he invited me with—"Now, sir, bring forward your chair." And we all, including the rustic youth, drew round the table: an austere silence prevailing while we discussed our meal.
I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to make an effort to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn; and it was impossible, however ill–tempered they might be, that the universal scowl they wore was their every–day countenance.
"It is strange," I began, in the interval of swallowing one cup of tea and receiving another—"it is strange how custom can mould our tastes and ideas: many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as you spend, Mr. Heathcliff; yet, I'll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady as the presiding genius over your home and heart—"
"My amiable lady!" he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face. "Where is she—my amiable lady?"
"Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean."
"Well, yes—oh, you would intimate that her spirit has taken the post of ministering angel, and guards the fortunes of Wuthering Heights, even when her body is gone. Is that it?"
Perceiving myself in a blunder, I attempted to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a disparity between the ages of the parties to make it likely that they were man and wife. One was about forty: a period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls: that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years. The other did not look seventeen.
Then it flashed on me—"The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin and eating his broad with unwashed hands, may be her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better individuals existed! A sad pity—I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice." The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not. My neighbour struck me as bordering on repulsive; I knew, through experience, that I was tolerably attractive.
"Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter–in–law," said Heathcliff, corroborating my surmise. He turned, as he spoke, a peculiar look in her direction: a look of hatred; unless he has a most perverse set of facial muscles that will not, like those of other people, interpret the language of his soul.
"Ah, certainly—I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the beneficent fairy," I remarked, turning to my neighbour.
This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist, with every appearance of a meditated assault. But he seemed to recollect himself presently, and smothered the storm in a brutal curse, muttered on my behalf: which, however, I took care not to notice.
"Unhappy in your conjectures, sir," observed my host; "we neither of us have the privilege of owning your good fairy; her mate is dead. I said she was my daughter–in–law: therefore, she must have married my son."
"And this young man is—"
"Not my son, assuredly."
Heathcliff smiled again, as if it were rather too bold a jest to attribute the paternity of that bear to him.
"My name is Hareton Earnshaw," growled the other; "and I'd counsel you to respect it!"
"I've shown no disrespect," was my reply, laughing internally at the dignity with which he announced himself.
He fixed his eye on me longer than I cared to return the stare, for fear I might be tempted either to box his ears or render my hilarity audible. I began to feel unmistakably out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal spiritual atmosphere overcame, and more than neutralised, the glowing physical comforts round me; and I resolved to be cautious how I ventured under those rafters a third time.
The business of eating being concluded, and no one uttering a word of sociable conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down prematurely, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.
"I don't think it possible for me to get home now without a guide," I could not help exclaiming. "The roads will be buried already; and, if they were bare, I could scarcely distinguish a foot in advance."
"Hareton, drive those dozen sheep into the barn porch. They'll be covered if left in the fold all night: and put a plank before them," said Heathcliff.
"How must I do?" I continued, with rising irritation.
There was no reply to my question; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning a bundle of matches which had fallen from the chimney–piece as she restored the tea–canister to its place. The former, when he had deposited his burden, took a critical survey of the room, and in cracked tones grated out—"Aw wonder how yah can faishion to stand thear i" idleness un war, when all on "ems goan out! Bud yah're a nowt, and it's no use talking—yah'll niver mend o'yer ill ways, but goa raight to t" divil, like yer mother afore ye!'
I imagined, for a moment, that this piece of eloquence was addressed to me; and, sufficiently enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal with an intention of kicking him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer.
"You scandalous old hypocrite!" she replied. "Are you not afraid of being carried away bodily, whenever you mention the devil's name? I warn you to refrain from provoking me, or I'll ask your abduction as a special favour! Stop! look here, Joseph," she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; "I'll show you how far I've progressed in the Black Art: I shall soon be competent to make a clear house of it. The red cow didn't die by chance; and your rheumatism can hardly be reckoned among providential visitations!"
"Oh, wicked, wicked!" gasped the elder; "may the Lord deliver us from evil!"
"No, reprobate! you are a castaway—be off, or I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay! and the first who passes the limits I fix shall—I'll not say what he shall be done to—but, you'll see! Go, I'm looking at you!"
The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with sincere horror, hurried out, praying, and ejaculating "wicked" as he went. I thought her conduct must be prompted by a species of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I endeavoured to interest her in my distress.
"Mrs. Heathcliff," I said earnestly, "you must excuse me for troubling you. I presume, because, with that face, I'm sure you cannot help being good–hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home: I have no more idea how to get there than you would have how to get to London!"
"Take the road you came," she answered, ensconcing herself in a chair, with a candle, and the long book open before her. "It is brief advice, but as sound as I can give."
"Then, if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or a pit full of snow, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?"
"How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn't let me go to the end of the garden wall."
"You! I should be sorry to ask you to cross the threshold, for my convenience, on such a night," I cried. "I want you to tell me my way, not to show it: or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide."
"Who? There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have?"
"Are there no boys at the farm?"
"No; those are all."
"Then, it follows that I am compelled to stay."
"That you may settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it."
"I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills," cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance. "As to staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph, if you do."
"I can sleep on a chair in this room," I replied.
"No, no! A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor: it will not suit me to permit any one the range of the place while I am off guard!" said the unmannerly wretch.
With this insult my patience was at an end. I uttered an expression of disgust, and pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the means of exit; and, as I wandered round, I heard another specimen of their civil behaviour amongst each other. At first the young man appeared about to befriend me.
"I'll go with him as far as the park," he said.
"You'll go with him to hell!" exclaimed his master, or whatever relation he bore. "And who is to look after the horses, eh?"
"A man's life is of more consequence than one evening's neglect of the horses: somebody must go," murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected.
"Not at your command!" retorted Hareton. "If you set store on him, you'd better be quiet."
"Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin," she answered, sharply.
"Hearken, hearken, shoo's cursing on "em!" muttered Joseph, towards whom I had been steering."
He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously, and, calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, rushed to the nearest postern.
"Maister, maister, he's staling t" lanthern!' shouted the ancient, pursuing my retreat. "Hey, Gnasher! Hey, dog! Hey Wolf, holld him, holld him!"
On opening the little door, two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the copestone on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on stretching their paws, and yawning, and flourishing their tails, than devouring me alive; but they would suffer no resurrection, and I was forced to lie till their malignant masters pleased to deliver me: then, hatless and trembling with wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out—on their peril to keep me one minute longer—with several incoherent threats of retaliation that, in their indefinite depth of virulency, smacked of King Lear.
The vehemence of my agitation brought on a copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don't know what would have concluded the scene, had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent than my entertainer. This was Zillah, the stout housewife; who at length issued forth to inquire into the nature of the uproar. She thought that some of them had been laying violent hands on me; and, not daring to attack her master, she turned her vocal artillery against the younger scoundrel.
"Well, Mr. Earnshaw," she cried, "I wonder what you'll have agait next? Are we going to murder folk on our very door–stones? I see this house will never do for me—look at t" poor lad, he's fair choking! Wisht, wisht; you mun'n't go on so. Come in, and I'll cure that: there now, hold ye still.'
With these words she suddenly splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.
I was sick exceedingly, and dizzy, and faint; and thus compelled perforce to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she condoled with me on my sorry predicament, and having obeyed his orders, whereby I was somewhat revived, ushered me to bed. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 3 | While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious.
Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes–press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows. Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old–fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.
The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.
In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle–wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf–skin. I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly–leaf bore the inscription—"Catherine Earnshaw, her book," and a date some quarter of a century back. I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all. Catherine's library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen–and–ink commentary—at least the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,—rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.
"An awful Sunday," commenced the paragraph beneath. "I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious—H. and I are going to rebel—we took our initiatory step this evening."
"All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire—doing anything but reading their Bibles, I'll answer for it—Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer–books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, "What, done already?" On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners."
"You forget you have a master here," says the tyrant. "I'll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers." Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks:"
"'T" maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o'ered, und t' sound o' t' gospel still i' yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill childer! there's good books eneugh if ye'll read 'em: sit ye down, and think o' yer sowls!"
"Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the far–off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog–kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub!"
"Maister Hindley!" shouted our chaplain. "Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy's riven th' back off 'Th' Helmet o' Salvation,' un' Heathcliff's pawsed his fit into t' first part o' 'T' Brooad Way to Destruction!' It's fair flaysome that ye let 'em go on this gait. Ech! th' owd man wad ha' laced 'em properly—but he's goan!"
"Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back–kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, 'owd Nick would fetch us as sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house–door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman's cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here." |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 5 | I began to nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from manuscript to print. I saw a red ornamented title—"Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy–First." A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.' And while I was, half–consciously, worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible night? I don't remember another that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering.
I began to dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my companion wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim's staff: telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully flourishing a heavy–headed cudgel, which I understood to be so denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text—"Seventy Times Seven;" and either Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the "First of the Seventy–First," and were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.
We came to the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the clergyman's stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.
Oh, how weary I grow. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally, he reached the "First of the Seventy–First." At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon.
"Sir," I exclaimed, "sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse. Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to depart—Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my seat. The four hundred and ninety–first is too much. Fellow–martyrs, have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!"
"Thou art the Man!" cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. "Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy–First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all His saints!"
With that concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim's staves, rushed round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self–defence, commenced grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his. In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me, fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings and counter rappings: every man's hand was against his neighbour; and Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez's part in the row? Merely the branch of a fir–tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by, and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if possible, still more disagreeably than before.
This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. "I must stop it, nevertheless!" I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice–cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, "Let me in—let me in!"
"Who are you?" I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. "Catherine Linton," it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton)—"I'm come home: I'd lost my way on the moor!" As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child's face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, "Let me in!" and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear. "How can I!" I said at length. "Let me go, if you want me to let you in!" The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! "Begone!" I shouted. "I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years."
"It is twenty years," mourned the voice: "twenty years. I've been a waif for twenty years!" Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright. To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself. At last, he said, in a half–whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, "Is any one here?" I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff's accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet. With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.
Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.
"It is only your guest, sir," I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation of exposing his cowardice further. "I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I'm sorry I disturbed you."
"Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the—" commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady. "And who showed you up into this room?" he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions. "Who was it? I've a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment?"
"It was your servant Zillah," I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly resuming my garments. "I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it is—swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you. No one will thank you for a doze in such a den!"
"What do you mean?" asked Heathcliff, "and what are you doing? Lie down and finish out the night, since you are here; but, for heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise: nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut!"
"If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me!" I returned. "I'm not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again. Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on the mother's side? And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called—she must have been a changeling—wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt!"
Scarcely were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory, till thus awakened. I blushed at my inconsideration: but, without showing further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add—"The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in—" Here I stopped afresh—I was about to say "perusing those old volumes," then it would have revealed my knowledge of their written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I went on—"in spelling over the name scratched on that window–ledge. A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or—"
"What can you mean by talking in this way to me!" thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. "How—how dare you, under my roof?—God! he's mad to speak so!" And he struck his forehead with rage.
I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of "Catherine Linton" before, but reading it often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind it. I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. Not liking to show him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily, looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night: "Not three o'clock yet! I could have taken oath it had been six. Time stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!"
"Always at nine in winter, and rise at four," said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I fancied, by the motion of his arm's shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes. "Mr. Lockwood," he added, "you may go into my room: you'll only be in the way, coming down–stairs so early: and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me."
"And for me, too," I replied. "I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I'll be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion. I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."
"Delightful company!" muttered Heathcliff. "Take the candle, and go where you please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and the house—Juno mounts sentinel there, and—nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you! I'll come in two minutes!"
I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears. "Come in! come in!" he sobbed. "Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!" The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.
There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though why was beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed in the back–kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly together, enabled me to rekindle my candle. Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew.
Two benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other. We were both of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was Joseph, shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through a trap: the ascent to his garret, I suppose. He cast a sinister look at the little flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the cat from its elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced the operation of stuffing a three–inch pipe with tobacco. My presence in his sanctum was evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for remark: he silently applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and puffed away. I let him enjoy the luxury unannoyed; and after sucking out his last wreath, and heaving a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as solemnly as he came.
A more elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a "good–morning," but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for Hareton Earnshaw was performing his orison sotto voce, in a series of curses directed against every object he touched, while he rummaged a corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts. He glanced over the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as little of exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat. I guessed, by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard couch, made a movement to follow him. He noticed this, and thrust at an inner door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.
It opened into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah urging flakes of flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs. Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the blaze. She held her hand interposed between the furnace–heat and her eyes, and seemed absorbed in her occupation; desisting from it only to chide the servant for covering her with sparks, or to push away a dog, now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face. I was surprised to see Heathcliff there also. He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy scene with poor Zillah; who ever and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up the corner of her apron, and heave an indignant groan.
"And you, you worthless—" he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter–in–law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash—. "There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of them do earn their bread—you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight—do you hear, damnable jade?"
"I'll put my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse," answered the young lady, closing her book, and throwing it on a chair. "But I'll not do anything, though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!"
Heathcliff lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance, obviously acquainted with its weight. Having no desire to be entertained by a cat–and–dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to partake the warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the interrupted dispute. Each had enough decorum to suspend further hostilities: Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay. That was not long. I declined joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, took an opportunity of escaping into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold as impalpable ice.
My landlord halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the garden, and offered to accompany me across the moor. It was well he did, for the whole hill–back was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and falls not indicating corresponding rises and depressions in the ground: many pits, at least, were filled to a level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from the chart which my yesterday's walk left pictured in my mind. I had remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren: these were erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand with the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there, all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it necessary to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I imagined I was following, correctly, the windings of the road.
We exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of Thrushcross Park, saying, I could make no error there. Our adieux were limited to a hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own resources; for the porter's lodge is untenanted as yet. The distance from the gate to the grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow: a predicament which only those who have experienced it can appreciate. At any rate, whatever were my wanderings, the clock chimed twelve as I entered the house; and that gave exactly an hour for every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.
My human fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming, tumultuously, they had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that I perished last night; and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my remains. I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me returned, and, benumbed to my very heart, I dragged up–stairs; whence, after putting on dry clothes, and pacing to and fro thirty or forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I adjourned to my study, feeble as a kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the cheerful fire and smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my refreshment. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 6 | What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to hold myself independent of all social intercourse, and thanked my stars that, at length, I had lighted on a spot where it was next to impracticable—I, weak wretch, after maintaining till dusk a struggle with low spirits and solitude, was finally compelled to strike my colours; and under pretence of gaining information concerning the necessities of my establishment, I desired Mrs. Dean, when she brought in supper, to sit down while I ate it; hoping sincerely she would prove a regular gossip, and either rouse me to animation or lull me to sleep by her talk.
"You have lived here a considerable time," I commenced; "did you not say sixteen years?"
"Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, to wait on her; after she died, the master retained me for his housekeeper."
"Indeed."
There ensued a pause. She was not a gossip, I feared; unless about her own affairs, and those could hardly interest me. However, having studied for an interval, with a fist on either knee, and a cloud of meditation over her ruddy countenance, she ejaculated—"Ah, times are greatly changed since then!"
"Yes," I remarked, "you've seen a good many alterations, I suppose?"
"I have: and troubles too," she said.
"Oh, I'll turn the talk on my landlord's family!" I thought to myself. "A good subject to start! And that pretty girl–widow, I should like to know her history: whether she be a native of the country, or, as is more probable, an exotic that the surly indigenae will not recognise for kin." With this intention I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in a situation and residence so much inferior. "Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order?" I inquired.
"Rich, sir!" she returned. "He has nobody knows what money, and every year it increases. Yes, yes, he's rich enough to live in a finer house than this: but he's very near—close–handed; and, if he had meant to flit to Thrushcross Grange, as soon as he heard of a good tenant he could not have borne to miss the chance of getting a few hundreds more. It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!"
"He had a son, it seems?"
"Yes, he had one—he is dead."
"And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?"
"Yes."
"Where did she come from originally?"
"Why, sir, she is my late master's daughter: Catherine Linton was her maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing! I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would remove here, and then we might have been together again."
"What! Catherine Linton?" I exclaimed, astonished. But a minute's reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine. Then,' I continued, "my predecessor's name was Linton?"
"It was."
"And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff? Are they relations?"
"No; he is the late Mrs. Linton's nephew."
"The young lady's cousin, then?"
"Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother's, the other on the father's side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton's sister."
"I see the house at Wuthering Heights has "Earnshaw" carved over the front door. Are they an old family?"
"Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of us—I mean, of the Lintons. Have you been to Wuthering Heights? I beg pardon for asking; but I should like to hear how she is!"
"Mrs. Heathcliff? she looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think, not very happy."
"Oh dear, I don't wonder! And how did you like the master?"
"A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean. Is not that his character?"
"Rough as a saw–edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him the better."
"He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl. Do you know anything of his history?"
"It's a cuckoo's, sir—I know all about it: except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money at first. And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged dunnock! The unfortunate lad is the only one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated."
"Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good enough to sit and chat an hour."
"Oh, certainly, sir! I'll just fetch a little sewing, and then I'll sit as long as you please. But you've caught cold: I saw you shivering, and you must have some gruel to drive it out."
The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire; my head felt hot, and the rest of me chill: moreover, I was excited, almost to a pitch of foolishness, through my nerves and brain. This caused me to feel, not uncomfortable, but rather fearful (as I am still) of serious effects from the incidents of to–day and yesterday. She returned presently, bringing a smoking basin and a basket of work; and, having placed the former on the hob, drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.
Before I came to live here, she commenced—waiting no farther invitation to her story—I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father, and I got used to playing with the children: I ran errands too, and helped to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me to. One fine summer morning—it was the beginning of harvest, I remember—Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came down–stairs, dressed for a journey; and, after he had told Joseph what was to be done during the day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me—for I sat eating my porridge with them—and he said, speaking to his son, "Now, my bonny man, I'm going to Liverpool to–day, what shall I bring you? You may choose what you like: only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back: sixty miles each way, that is a long spell!" Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy; she was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. He did not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed his children, said good–bye, and set off.
It seemed a long while to us all—the three days of his absence—and often did little Cathy ask when he would be home. Mrs. Earnshaw expected him by supper–time on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour after hour; there were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look. Then it grew dark; she would have had them to bed, but they begged sadly to be allowed to stay up; and, just about eleven o'clock, the door–latch was raised quietly, and in stepped the master. He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly killed—he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms.
"And at the end of it to be flighted to death!" he said, opening his great–coat, which he held bundled up in his arms. "See here, wife! I was never so beaten with anything in my life: but you must e'en take it as a gift of God; though it's as dark almost as if it came from the devil."
We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy's head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black–haired child; big enough both to walk and talk: indeed, its face looked older than Catherine's; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling it out of doors: she did fly up, asking how he could fashion to bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? What he meant to do with it, and whether he were mad? The master tried to explain the matter; but he was really half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing it starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb, in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and his money and time being both limited, he thought it better to take it home with him at once, than run into vain expenses there: because he was determined he would not leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.
Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till peace was restored: then, both began searching their father's pockets for the presents he had promised them. The former was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the great–coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, showed her humour by grinning and spitting at the stupid little thing; earning for her pains a sound blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners. They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; and I had no more sense, so I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it might he gone on the morrow. By chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house.
This was Heathcliff's first introduction to the family. On coming back a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I found they had christened him "Heathcliff": it was the name of a son who died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian and surname. Miss Cathy and he were now very thick; but Hindley hated him: and to say the truth I did the same; and we plagued and went on with him shamefully: for I wasn't reasonable enough to feel my injustice, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf when she saw him wronged.
He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill–treatment: he would stand Hindley's blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. This endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the poor fatherless child, as he called him. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth), and petting him up far above Cathy, who was too mischievous and wayward for a favourite.
So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house; and at Mrs. Earnshaw's death, which happened in less than two years after, the young master had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent's affections and his privileges; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries. I sympathised a while; but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, and take on me the cares of a woman at once, I changed my idea. Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and while he lay at the worst he would have me constantly by his pillow: I suppose he felt I did a good deal for him, and he hadn't wit to guess that I was compelled to do it. However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble.
He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing to me, and praised me for my care. I was vain of his commendations, and softened towards the being by whose means I earned them, and thus Hindley lost his last ally: still I couldn't dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy; who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude. He was not insolent to his benefactor, he was simply insensible; though knowing perfectly the hold he had on his heart, and conscious he had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes. As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts at the parish fair, and gave the lads each one. Heathcliff took the handsomest, but it soon fell lame, and when he discovered it, he said to Hindley—
"You must exchange horses with me: I don't like mine; and if you won't I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you've given me this week, and show him my arm, which is black to the shoulder." Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed him over the ears. "You'd better do it at once," he persisted, escaping to the porch (they were in the stable): "you will have to: and if I speak of these blows, you'll get them again with interest."
"Off, dog!" cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay. "Throw it," he replied, standing still, "and then I'll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died, and see whether he will not turn you out directly." Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone just so to the master, and got full revenge by letting his condition plead for him, intimating who had caused it. "Take my colt, Gipsy, then!" said young Earnshaw. "And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and he damned, you beggarly interloper! and wheedle my father out of all he has: only afterwards show him what you are, imp of Satan.—And take that, I hope he'll kick out your brains!"
Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, and shift it to his own stall; he was passing behind it, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him under its feet, and without stopping to examine whether his hopes were fulfilled, ran away as fast as he could. I was surprised to witness how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention; exchanging saddles and all, and then sitting down on a bundle of hay to overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered the house. I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises on the horse: he minded little what tale was told since he had what he wanted. He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will hear. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 7 | In the course of time Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly; and when he was confined to the chimney–corner he grew grievously irritable. A nothing vexed him; and suspected slights of his authority nearly threw him into fits. This was especially to be remarked if any one attempted to impose upon, or domineer over, his favourite: he was painfully jealous lest a word should be spoken amiss to him; seeming to have got into his head the notion that, because he liked Heathcliff, all hated, and longed to do him an ill–turn. It was a disadvantage to the lad; for the kinder among us did not wish to fret the master, so we humoured his partiality; and that humouring was rich nourishment to the child's pride and black tempers. Still it became in a manner necessary; twice, or thrice, Hindley's manifestation of scorn, while his father was near, roused the old man to a fury: he seized his stick to strike him, and shook with rage that he could not do it.
At last, our curate (we had a curate then who made the living answer by teaching the little Lintons and Earnshaws, and farming his bit of land himself) advised that the young man should be sent to college; and Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—"Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered."
I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. He was, and is yet most likely, the wearisomest self–righteous Pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses to his neighbours. By his knack of sermonising and pious discoursing, he contrived to make a great impression on Mr. Earnshaw; and the more feeble the master became, the more influence he gained. He was relentless in worrying him about his soul's concerns, and about ruling his children rigidly. He encouraged him to regard Hindley as a reprobate; and, night after night, he regularly grumbled out a long string of tales against Heathcliff and Catherine: always minding to flatter Earnshaw's weakness by heaping the heaviest blame on the latter.
Certainly she had ways with her such as I never saw a child take up before; and she put all of us past our patience fifty times and oftener in a day: from the hour she came down–stairs till the hour she went to bed, we had not a minute's security that she wouldn't be in mischief. Her spirits were always at high–water mark, her tongue always going—singing, laughing, and plaguing everybody who would not do the same. A wild, wicked slip she was—but she had the bonniest eye, the sweetest smile, and lightest foot in the parish: and, after all, I believe she meant no harm; for when once she made you cry in good earnest, it seldom happened that she would not keep you company, and oblige you to be quiet that you might comfort her. She was much too fond of Heathcliff. The greatest punishment we could invent for her was to keep her separate from him: yet she got chided more than any of us on his account. In play, she liked exceedingly to act the little mistress; using her hands freely, and commanding her companions: she did so to me, but I would not bear slapping and ordering; and so I let her know.
Now, Mr. Earnshaw did not understand jokes from his children: he had always been strict and grave with them; and Catherine, on her part, had no idea why her father should be crosser and less patient in his ailing condition than he was in his prime. His peevish reproofs wakened in her a naughty delight to provoke him: she was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once, and she defying us with her bold, saucy look, and her ready words; turning Joseph's religious curses into ridicule, baiting me, and doing just what her father hated most—showing how her pretended insolence, which he thought real, had more power over Heathcliff than his kindness: how the boy would do her bidding in anything, and his only when it suited his own inclination. After behaving as badly as possible all day, she sometimes came fondling to make it up at night. "Nay, Cathy," the old man would say, "I cannot love thee, thou'rt worse than thy brother. Go, say thy prayers, child, and ask God's pardon. I doubt thy mother and I must rue that we ever reared thee!" That made her cry, at first; and then being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to say she was sorry for her faults, and beg to be forgiven.
But the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire–side. A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together—I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done). Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. I remember the master, before he fell into a doze, stroking her bonny hair—it pleased him rarely to see her gentle—and saying, "Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?" And she turned her face up to his, and laughed, and answered, "Why cannot you always be a good man, father?" But as soon as she saw him vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on his breast. Then I told her to hush, and not stir, for fear she should wake him. We all kept as mute as mice a full half–hour, and should have done so longer, only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and said that he must rouse the master for prayers and bed. He stepped forward, and called him by name, and touched his shoulder; but he would not move: so he took the candle and looked at him. I thought there was something wrong as he set down the light; and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered them to "frame up–stairs, and make little din—they might pray alone that evening—he had summut to do."
"I shall bid father good–night first," said Catherine, putting her arms round his neck, before we could hinder her. The poor thing discovered her loss directly—she screamed out—"Oh, he's dead, Heathcliff! he's dead!" And they both set up a heart–breaking cry.
I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter; but Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar in that way over a saint in heaven. He told me to put on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and the parson. I could not guess the use that either would be of, then. However, I went, through wind and rain, and brought one, the doctor, back with me; the other said he would come in the morning. Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the children's room: their door was ajar, I saw they had never lain down, though it was past midnight; but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 8 | Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and—a thing that amazed us, and set the neighbours gossiping right and left—he brought a wife with him. What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the union from his father.
She was not one that would have disturbed the house much on her own account. Every object she saw, the moment she crossed the threshold, appeared to delight her; and every circumstance that took place about her: except the preparing for the burial, and the presence of the mourners. I thought she was half silly, from her behaviour while that went on: she ran into her chamber, and made me come with her, though I should have been dressing the children: and there she sat shivering and clasping her hands, and asking repeatedly—"Are they gone yet?" Then she began describing with hysterical emotion the effect it produced on her to see black; and started, and trembled, and, at last, fell a–weeping—and when I asked what was the matter, answered, she didn't know; but she felt so afraid of dying! I imagined her as little likely to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and fresh–complexioned, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick; that the least sudden noise set her all in a quiver, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these symptoms portended, and had no impulse to sympathise with her. We don't in general take to foreigners here, Mr. Lockwood, unless they take to us first.
Young Earnshaw was altered considerably in the three years of his absence. He had grown sparer, and lost his colour, and spoke and dressed quite differently; and, on the very day of his return, he told Joseph and me we must thenceforth quarter ourselves in the back–kitchen, and leave the house for him. Indeed, he would have carpeted and papered a small spare room for a parlour; but his wife expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, at the pewter dishes and delf–case, and dog–kennel, and the wide space there was to move about in where they usually sat, that he thought it unnecessary to her comfort, and so dropped the intention.
She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new acquaintance; and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and ran about with her, and gave her quantities of presents, at the beginning. Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, evincing a dislike to Heathcliff, were enough to rouse in him all his old hatred of the boy. He drove him from their company to the servants, deprived him of the instructions of the curate, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead; compelling him to do so as hard as any other lad on the farm.
Heathcliff bore his degradation pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They both promised fair to grow up as rude as savages; the young master being entirely negligent how they behaved, and what they did, so they kept clear of him. He would not even have seen after their going to church on Sundays, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded his carelessness when they absented themselves; and that reminded him to order Heathcliff a flogging, and Catherine a fast from dinner or supper. But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and the after punishment grew a mere thing to laugh at. The curate might set as many chapters as he pleased for Catherine to get by heart, and Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together again: at least the minute they had contrived some naughty plan of revenge; and many a time I've cried to myself to watch them growing more reckless daily, and I not daring to speak a syllable, for fear of losing the small power I still retained over the unfriended creatures. One Sunday evening, it chanced that they were banished from the sitting–room, for making a noise, or a light offence of the kind; and when I went to call them to supper, I could discover them nowhere. We searched the house, above and below, and the yard and stables; they were invisible: and, at last, Hindley in a passion told us to bolt the doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night. The household went to bed; and I, too, anxious to lie down, opened my lattice and put my head out to hearken, though it rained: determined to admit them in spite of the prohibition, should they return. In a while, I distinguished steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the gate. I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking. There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a start to see him alone.
"Where is Miss Catherine?" I cried hurriedly. "No accident, I hope?"
"At Thrushcross Grange," he answered; "and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay."
"Well, you will catch it!" I said: "you'll never be content till you're sent about your business. What in the world led you wandering to Thrushcross Grange?"
"Let me get off my wet clothes, and I'll tell you all about it, Nelly," he replied. I bid him beware of rousing the master, and while he undressed and I waited to put out the candle, he continued—"Cathy and I escaped from the wash–house to have a ramble at liberty, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see whether the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing, and burning their eyes out before the fire. Do you think they do? Or reading sermons, and being catechised by their manservant, and set to learn a column of Scripture names, if they don't answer properly?"
"Probably not," I responded. "They are good children, no doubt, and don't deserve the treatment you receive, for your bad conduct."
"Don't cant, Nelly," he said: "nonsense! We ran from the top of the Heights to the park, without stopping—Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You'll have to seek for her shoes in the bog to–morrow. We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves on a flower–plot under the drawing–room window. The light came from thence; they had not put up the shutters, and the curtains were only half closed. Both of us were able to look in by standing on the basement, and clinging to the ledge, and we saw—ah! it was beautiful—a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson–covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass–drops hanging in silver chains from the centre, and shimmering with little soft tapers. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sisters had it entirely to themselves. Shouldn't they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven! And now, guess what your good children were doing? Isabella—I believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathy—lay screaming at the farther end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running red–hot needles into her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping silently, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which, from their mutual accusations, we understood they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots! That was their pleasure! to quarrel who should hold a heap of warm hair, and each begin to cry because both, after struggling to get it, refused to take it. We laughed outright at the petted things; we did despise them! When would you catch me wishing to have what Catherine wanted? or find us by ourselves, seeking entertainment in yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground, divided by the whole room? I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here, for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange—not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the house–front with Hindley's blood!"
"Hush, hush!" I interrupted. "Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind?"
"I told you we laughed," he answered. "The Lintons heard us, and with one accord they shot like arrows to the door; there was silence, and then a cry, "Oh, mamma, mamma! Oh, papa! Oh, mamma, come here. Oh, papa, oh!" They really did howl out something in that way. We made frightful noises to terrify them still more, and then we dropped off the ledge, because somebody was drawing the bars, and we felt we had better flee. I had Cathy by the hand, and was urging her on, when all at once she fell down. "Run, Heathcliff, run!" she whispered. "They have let the bull–dog loose, and he holds me!" The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly: I heard his abominable snorting. She did not yell out—no! she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow. I did, though: I vociferated curses enough to annihilate any fiend in Christendom; and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat. A beast of a servant came up with a lantern, at last, shouting—"Keep fast, Skulker, keep fast!" He changed his note, however, when he saw Skulker's game. The dog was throttled off; his huge, purple tongue hanging half a foot out of his mouth, and his pendent lips streaming with bloody slaver. The man took Cathy up; she was sick: not from fear, I'm certain, but from pain. He carried her in; I followed, grumbling execrations and vengeance. "What prey, Robert?" hallooed Linton from the entrance. "Skulker has caught a little girl, sir," he replied; "and there's a lad here," he added, making a clutch at me, "who looks an out–and–outer! Very like the robbers were for putting them through the window to open the doors to the gang after all were asleep, that they might murder us at their ease. Hold your tongue, you foul–mouthed thief, you! you shall go to the gallows for this. Mr. Linton, sir, don't lay by your gun."
"No, no, Robert," said the old fool. "The rascals knew that yesterday was my rent–day: they thought to have me cleverly. Come in; I'll furnish them a reception. There, John, fasten the chain. Give Skulker some water, Jenny. To beard a magistrate in his stronghold, and on the Sabbath, too! Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don't be afraid, it is but a boy—yet the villain scowls so plainly in his face; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once, before he shows his nature in acts as well as features?" He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton placed her spectacles on her nose and raised her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping—"Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He's exactly like the son of the fortune–teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn't he, Edgar?"
"While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and laughed. Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient wit to recognise her. They see us at church, you know, though we seldom meet them elsewhere. "That's Miss Earnshaw?" he whispered to his mother, "and look how Skulker has bitten her—how her foot bleeds!"
"Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!" cried the dame; "Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy! And yet, my dear, the child is in mourning—surely it is—and she may be lamed for life!"
"What culpable carelessness in her brother!" exclaimed Mr. Linton, turning from me to Catherine. "I've understood from Shielders" (that was the curate, sir) "that he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism. But who is this? Where did she pick up this companion? Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool—a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway."
"A wicked boy, at all events," remarked the old lady, "and quite unfit for a decent house! Did you notice his language, Linton? I'm shocked that my children should have heard it."
"I recommenced cursing—don't be angry, Nelly—and so Robert was ordered to take me off. I refused to go without Cathy; he dragged me into the garden, pushed the lantern into my hand, assured me that Mr. Earnshaw should be informed of my behaviour, and, bidding me march directly, secured the door again. The curtains were still looped up at one corner, and I resumed my station as spy; because, if Catherine had wished to return, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million of fragments, unless they let her out. She sat on the sofa quietly. Mrs. Linton took off the grey cloak of the dairy–maid which we had borrowed for our excursion, shaking her head and expostulating with her, I suppose: she was a young lady, and they made a distinction between her treatment and mine. Then the woman–servant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed a tumbler of negus, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping at a distance. Afterwards, they dried and combed her beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire; and I left her, as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little dog and Skulker, whose nose she pinched as he ate; and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons—a dim reflection from her own enchanting face. I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them—to everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?"
"There will more come of this business than you reckon on," I answered, covering him up and extinguishing the light. "You are incurable, Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremities, see if he won't." My words came truer than I desired. The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow, and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family, that he was stirred to look about him, in earnest. Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure a dismissal; and Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister–in–law in due restraint when she returned home; employing art, not force: with force she would have found it impossible. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 9 | Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self–respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there "lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in. Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, "Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should scarcely have known you: you look like a lady now. Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she, Frances?"
"Isabella has not her natural advantages," replied his wife: "but she must mind and not grow wild again here. Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things—Stay, dear, you will disarrange your curls—let me untie your hat."
I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments. She kissed me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug; and then she looked round for Heathcliff. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting; thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends.
Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first. If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine's absence, he had been ten times more so since. Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water. Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months' service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded. He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough–headed counterpart of himself, as he expected. "Is Heathcliff not here?" she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors.
"Heathcliff, you may come forward," cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself. "You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants."
Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, "Why, how very black and cross you look! and how—how funny and grim! But that's because I'm used to Edgar and Isabella Linton. Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?"
She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable.
"Shake hands, Heathcliff," said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; "once in a way, that is permitted."
"I shall not," replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; "I shall not stand to be laughed at. I shall not bear it!" And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again.
"I did not mean to laugh at you," she said; "I could not hinder myself: Heathcliff, shake hands at least! What are you sulky for? It was only that you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right: but you are so dirty!"
She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his.
"You needn't have touched me!" he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand. "I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty."
With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper.
After playing lady's–maid to the new–comer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas–eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph's affirmations that he considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs. He had retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy's attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness. They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that "naughty swearing boy."
Under these circumstances I remained solitary. I smelt the rich scent of the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless purity of my particular care—the scoured and well–swept floor. I gave due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas–box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad's situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying. It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them: I got up and walked into the court to seek him. He was not far; I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom.
"Make haste, Heathcliff!" I said, "the kitchen is so comfortable; and Joseph is up–stairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime."
He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me.
"Come—are you coming?" I continued. "There's a little cake for each of you, nearly enough; and you'll need half–an–hour's donning."
I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him. Catherine supped with her brother and sister–in–law: Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies. He managed to continue work till nine o'clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber. Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back. In the morning he rose early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill–humour on to the moors; not re–appearing till the family were departed for church. Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit. He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed abruptly—"Nelly, make me decent, I'm going to be good."
"High time, Heathcliff," I said; "you have grieved Catherine: she's sorry she ever came home, I daresay! It looks as if you envied her, because she is more thought of than you."
The notion of envying Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough.
"Did she say she was grieved?" he inquired, looking very serious.
"She cried when I told her you were off again this morning."
"Well, I cried last night," he returned, "and I had more reason to cry than she."
"Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach," said I. "Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in. You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say—you know best what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted into a stranger by her grand dress. And now, though I have dinner to get ready, I'll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look quite a doll beside you: and that he does. You are younger, and yet, I'll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders; you could knock him down in a twinkling; don't you feel that you could?"
Heathcliff's face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed.
"But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn't make him less handsome or me more so. I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!"
"And cried for mamma at every turn," I added, "and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! Come to the glass, and I'll let you see what you should wish. Do you mark those two lines between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched, sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies? Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. Don't get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers."
"In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton's great blue eyes and even forehead," he replied. "I do—and that won't help me to them."
"A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad," I continued, "if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly. And now that we've done washing, and combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don't think yourself rather handsome? I'll tell you, I do. You're fit for a prince in disguise. Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!"
So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court. He ran to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in winter. Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour into their white faces.
I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other. They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph "keep the fellow out of the room—send him into the garret till dinner is over. He'll be cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute."
"Nay, sir," I could not avoid answering, "he'll touch nothing, not he: and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we."
"He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till dark," cried Hindley. "Begone, you vagabond! What! you are attempting the coxcomb, are you? Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks—see if I won't pull them a bit longer!"
"They are long enough already," observed Master Linton, peeping from the doorway; "I wonder they don't make his head ache. It's like a colt's mane over his eyes!"
He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff's violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce (the first thing that came under his gripe) and dashed it full against the speaker's face and neck; who instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the place. Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless. I got the dishcloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar's nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling. His sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all.
"You should not have spoken to him!" she expostulated with Master Linton. "He was in a bad temper, and now you've spoilt your visit; and he'll be flogged: I hate him to be flogged! I can't eat my dinner. Why did you speak to him, Edgar?"
"I didn't," sobbed the youth, escaping from my hands, and finishing the remainder of the purification with his cambric pocket–handkerchief. "I promised mamma that I wouldn't say one word to him, and I didn't."
"Well, don't cry," replied Catherine, contemptuously; "you're not killed. Don't make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet! Hush, Isabella! Has anybody hurt you?"
"There, there, children—to your seats!" cried Hindley, bustling in. "That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely. Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fists—it will give you an appetite!"
The little party recovered its equanimity at sight of the fragrant feast. They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real harm had befallen them. Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the mistress made them merry with lively talk. I waited behind her chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her. "An unfeeling child," I thought to myself; "how lightly she dismisses her old playmate's troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so selfish." She lifted a mouthful to her lips: then she set it down again: her cheeks flushed, and the tears gushed over them. She slipped her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion. I did not call her unfeeling long; for I perceived she was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of getting by herself, or paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master: as I discovered, on endeavouring to introduce to him a private mess of victuals.
In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first–rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty.
Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed. They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made no stay at the stairs'-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow–servant had gone to a neighbour's, to be removed from the sound of our "devil's psalmody," as it pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely—"I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!"
"For shame, Heathcliff!" said I. "It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive."
"No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall," he returned. "I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain."
"But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you. I'm annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliff's history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words." |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 10 | Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding. "Sit still, Mrs. Dean," I cried; "do sit still another half–hour. You've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less."
"The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir."
"No matter—I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten."
"You shouldn't lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one–half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone."
"Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to–morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least."
"I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw—"
"No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?"
"A terribly lazy mood, I should say."
"On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present; and, therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker–on. They do live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year's standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance."
"Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us," observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech.
"Excuse me," I responded; "you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion. Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class. I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think. You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles."
Mrs. Dean laughed.
"I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body," she said; "not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but I have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French; and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man's daughter. However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer—the summer of 1778, that is nearly twenty–three years ago." |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 11 | On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy with the hay in a far–away field, when the girl that usually brought our breakfasts came running an hour too soon across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran.
"Oh, such a grand bairn!" she panted out. "The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says missis must go: he says she's been in a consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she'll be dead before winter. You must come home directly. You're to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night. I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis!"
"But is she very ill?" I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet.
"I guess she is; yet she looks bravely," replied the girl, "and she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man. She's out of her head for joy, it's such a beauty! If I were her I'm certain I should not die: I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Kenneth. I was fairly mad at him. Dame Archer brought the cherub down to master, in the house, and his face just began to light up, when the old croaker steps forward, and says he—"Earnshaw, it's a blessing your wife has been spared to leave you this son. When she came, I felt convinced we shouldn't keep her long; and now, I must tell you, the winter will probably finish her. Don't take on, and fret about it too much: it can't be helped. And besides, you should have known better than to choose such a rush of a lass!"
"And what did the master answer?" I inquired.
"I think he swore: but I didn't mind him, I was straining to see the bairn," and she began again to describe it rapturously. I, as zealous as herself, hurried eagerly home to admire, on my part; though I was very sad for Hindley's sake. He had room in his heart only for two idols—his wife and himself: he doted on both, and adored one, and I couldn't conceive how he would bear the loss.
When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door; and, as I passed in, I asked, "how was the baby?"
"Nearly ready to run about, Nell!" he replied, putting on a cheerful smile.
"And the mistress?" I ventured to inquire; "the doctor says she's—"
"Damn the doctor!" he interrupted, reddening. "Frances is quite right: she'll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going up–stairs? will you tell her that I'll come, if she'll promise not to talk. I left her because she would not hold her tongue; and she must—tell her Mr. Kenneth says she must be quiet."
I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw; she seemed in flighty spirits, and replied merrily, "I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won't speak: but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!"
Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her; and her husband persisted doggedly, nay, furiously, in affirming her health improved every day. When Kenneth warned him that his medicines were useless at that stage of the malady, and he needn't put him to further expense by attending her, he retorted, "I know you need not—she's well—she does not want any more attendance from you! She never was in a consumption. It was a fever; and it is gone: her pulse is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool."
He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, in the act of saying she thought she should be able to get up to–morrow, a fit of coughing took her—a very slight one—he raised her in his arms; she put her two hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead.
As the girl had anticipated, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands. Mr. Earnshaw, provided he saw him healthy and never heard him cry, was contented, as far as regarded him. For himself, he grew desperate: his sorrow was of that kind that will not lament. He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied: execrated God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation. The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I had not the heart to leave my charge; and besides, you know, I had been his foster–sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would. Joseph remained to hector over tenants and labourers; and because it was his vocation to be where he had plenty of wickedness to reprove.
The master's bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption; and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity. I could not half tell what an infernal house we had. The curate dropped calling, and nobody decent came near us, at last; unless Edgar Linton's visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception. At fifteen she was the queen of the country–side; she had no peer; and she did turn out a haughty, headstrong creature! I own I did not like her, after infancy was past; and I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance: she never took an aversion to me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably; and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression. He was my late master: that is his portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side, and his wife's on the other; but hers has been removed, or else you might see something of what she was. Can you make that out?
Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I discerned a soft–featured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious; the figure almost too graceful. I did not marvel how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend for such an individual. I marvelled much how he, with a mind to correspond with his person, could fancy my idea of Catherine Earnshaw.
"A very agreeable portrait," I observed to the house–keeper. "Is it like?"
"Yes," she answered; "but he looked better when he was animated; that is his everyday countenance: he wanted spirit in general."
Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons since her five–weeks' residence among them; and as she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, and had the sense to be ashamed of being rude where she experienced such invariable courtesy, she imposed unwittingly on the old lady and gentleman by her ingenious cordiality; gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother: acquisitions that flattered her from the first—for she was full of ambition—and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. In the place where she heard Heathcliff termed a "vulgar young ruffian," and "worse than a brute," she took care not to act like him; but at home she had small inclination to practise politeness that would only be laughed at, and restrain an unruly nature when it would bring her neither credit nor praise.
Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly. He had a terror of Earnshaw's reputation, and shrunk from encountering him; and yet he was always received with our best attempts at civility: the master himself avoided offending him, knowing why he came; and if he could not be gracious, kept out of the way. I rather think his appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful, never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to her two friends meeting at all; for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his presence, she could not half coincide, as she did in his absence; and when Linton evinced disgust and antipathy to Heathcliff, she dared not treat his sentiments with indifference, as if depreciation of her playmate were of scarcely any consequence to her. I've had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide from my mockery. That sounds ill–natured: but she was so proud it became really impossible to pity her distresses, till she should be chastened into more humility. She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and to confide in me: there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an adviser.
Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday on the strength of it. He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being deficient in intellect, he contrived to convey an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of. In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and any love for books or learning. His childhood's sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away. He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintance.
Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him. On the before–named occasion he came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother's absence, and was then preparing to receive him.
"Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?" asked Heathcliff. "Are you going anywhere?"
"No, it is raining," she answered.
"Why have you that silk frock on, then?" he said. "Nobody coming here, I hope?"
"Not that I know of," stammered Miss: "but you should be in the field now, Heathcliff. It is an hour past dinnertime: I thought you were gone."
"Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence," observed the boy. "I'll not work any more to–day: I'll stay with you."
"Oh, but Joseph will tell," she suggested; "you'd better go!"
"Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags; it will take him till dark, and he'll never know."
So, saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down. Catherine reflected an instant, with knitted brows—she found it needful to smooth the way for an intrusion. "Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon," she said, at the conclusion of a minute's silence. "As it rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run the risk of being scolded for no good."
"Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy," he persisted; "don't turn me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours! I'm on the point, sometimes, of complaining that they—but I'll not—"
"That they what?" cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled countenance. "Oh, Nelly!" she added petulantly, jerking her head away from my hands, "you've combed my hair quite out of curl! That's enough; let me alone. What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff?"
"Nothing—only look at the almanack on that wall;" he pointed to a framed sheet hanging near the window, and continued, "The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me. Do you see? I've marked every day."
"Yes—very foolish: as if I took notice!" replied Catherine, in a peevish tone. "And where is the sense of that?"
"To show that I do take notice," said Heathcliff.
"And should I always be sitting with you?" she demanded, growing more irritated. "What good do I get? What do you talk about? You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either!"
"You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked my company, Cathy!" exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation.
"It's no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing," she muttered.
Her companion rose up, but he hadn't time to express his feelings further, for a horse's feet were heard on the flags, and having knocked gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summon she had received. Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, and pronounced his words as you do: that's less gruff than we talk here, and softer.
"I'm not come too soon, am I?" he said, casting a look at me: I had begun to wipe the plate, and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser.
"No," answered Catherine. "What are you doing there, Nelly?"
"My work, Miss," I replied. (Mr. Hindley had given me directions to make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.)
She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, "Take yourself and your dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don't commence scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!"
"It's a good opportunity, now that master is away," I answered aloud: "he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence. I'm sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me."
"I hate you to be fidgeting in my presence," exclaimed the young lady imperiously, not allowing her guest time to speak: she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff.
"I'm sorry for it, Miss Catherine," was my response; and I proceeded assiduously with my occupation.
She, supposing Edgar could not see her, snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me, with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm. I've said I did not love her, and rather relished mortifying her vanity now and then: besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up from my knees, and screamed out, "Oh, Miss, that's a nasty trick! You have no right to nip me, and I'm not going to bear it."
"I didn't touch you, you lying creature!" cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage. She never had power to conceal her passion, it always set her whole complexion in a blaze.
"What's that, then?" I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to refute her.
She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then, irresistibly impelled by the naughty spirit within her, slapped me on the cheek: a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water.
"Catherine, love! Catherine!" interposed Linton, greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed.
"Leave the room, Ellen!" she repeated, trembling all over.
Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere, and was sitting near me on the floor, at seeing my tears commenced crying himself, and sobbed out complaints against "wicked aunt Cathy," which drew her fury on to his unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child waxed livid, and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him. In an instant one was wrung free, and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement. The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip.
"That's right!" I said to myself. "Take warning and begone! It's a kindness to let you have a glimpse of her genuine disposition."
"Where are you going?" demanded Catherine, advancing to the door.
He swerved aside, and attempted to pass.
"You must not go!" she exclaimed, energetically.
"I must and shall!" he replied in a subdued voice.
"No," she persisted, grasping the handle; "not yet, Edgar Linton: sit down; you shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all night, and I won't be miserable for you!"
"Can I stay after you have struck me?" asked Linton.
Catherine was mute.
"You've made me afraid and ashamed of you," he continued; "I'll not come here again!"
Her eyes began to glisten and her lids to twinkle.
"And you told a deliberate untruth!" he said.
"I didn't!" she cried, recovering her speech; "I did nothing deliberately. Well, go, if you please—get away! And now I'll cry—I'll cry myself sick!"
She dropped down on her knees by a chair, and set to weeping in serious earnest. Edgar persevered in his resolution as far as the court; there he lingered. I resolved to encourage him.
"Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir," I called out. "As bad as any marred child: you'd better be riding home, or else she will be sick, only to grieve us."
The soft thing looked askance through the window: he possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten. Ah, I thought, there will be no saving him: he's doomed, and flies to his fate! And so it was: he turned abruptly, hastened into the house again, shut the door behind him; and when I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears (his ordinary frame of mind in that condition), I saw the quarrel had merely effected a closer intimacy—had broken the outworks of youthful timidity, and enabled them to forsake the disguise of friendship, and confess themselves lovers.
Intelligence of Mr. Hindley's arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse, and Catherine to her chamber. I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master's fowling–piece, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement, to the hazard of the lives of any who provoked, or even attracted his notice too much; and I had hit upon the plan of removing it, that he might do less mischief if he did go the length of firing the gun. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 12 | He entered, vociferating oaths dreadful to hear; and caught me in the act of stowing his son sway in the kitchen cupboard. Hareton was impressed with a wholesome terror of encountering either his wild beast's fondness or his madman's rage; for in one he ran a chance of being squeezed and kissed to death, and in the other of being flung into the fire, or dashed against the wall; and the poor thing remained perfectly quiet wherever I chose to put him.
"There, I've found it out at last!" cried Hindley, pulling me back by the skin of my neck, like a dog. "By heaven and hell, you've sworn between you to murder that child! I know how it is, now, that he is always out of my way. But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the carving–knife, Nelly! You needn't laugh; for I've just crammed Kenneth, head–downmost, in the Black–horse marsh; and two is the same as one—and I want to kill some of you: I shall have no rest till I do!"
"But I don't like the carving–knife, Mr. Hindley," I answered; "it has been cutting red herrings. I'd rather be shot, if you please."
"You'd rather be damned!" he said; "and so you shall. No law in England can hinder a man from keeping his house decent, and mine's abominable! Open your mouth." He held the knife in his hand, and pushed its point between my teeth: but, for my part, I was never much afraid of his vagaries. I spat out, and affirmed it tasted detestably—I would not take it on any account.
"Oh!" said he, releasing me, "I see that hideous little villain is not Hareton: I beg your pardon, Nell. If it be, he deserves flaying alive for not running to welcome me, and for screaming as if I were a goblin. Unnatural cub, come hither! I'll teach thee to impose on a good–hearted, deluded father. Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped? It makes a dog fiercer, and I love something fierce—get me a scissors—something fierce and trim! Besides, it's infernal affectation—devilish conceit it is, to cherish our ears—we're asses enough without them. Hush, child, hush! Well then, it is my darling! wisht, dry thy eyes—there's a joy; kiss me. What! it won't? Kiss me, Hareton! Damn thee, kiss me! By God, as if I would rear such a monster! As sure as I'm living, I'll break the brat's neck."
Poor Hareton was squalling and kicking in his father's arms with all his might, and redoubled his yells when he carried him up–stairs and lifted him over the banister. I cried out that he would frighten the child into fits, and ran to rescue him. As I reached them, Hindley leant forward on the rails to listen to a noise below; almost forgetting what he had in his hands. "Who is that?" he asked, hearing some one approaching the stairs'-foot. I leant forward also, for the purpose of signing to Heathcliff, whose step I recognised, not to come further; and, at the instant when my eye quitted Hareton, he gave a sudden spring, delivered himself from the careless grasp that held him, and fell.
There was scarcely time to experience a thrill of horror before we saw that the little wretch was safe. Heathcliff arrived underneath just at the critical moment; by a natural impulse he arrested his descent, and setting him on his feet, looked up to discover the author of the accident. A miser who has parted with a lucky lottery ticket for five shillings, and finds next day he has lost in the bargain five thousand pounds, could not show a blanker countenance than he did on beholding the figure of Mr. Earnshaw above. It expressed, plainer than words could do, the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge. Had it been dark, I daresay he would have tried to remedy the mistake by smashing Hareton's skull on the steps; but, we witnessed his salvation; and I was presently below with my precious charge pressed to my heart. Hindley descended more leisurely, sobered and abashed.
"It is your fault, Ellen," he said; "you should have kept him out of sight: you should have taken him from me! Is he injured anywhere?"
"Injured!" I cried angrily; "if he is not killed, he'll be an idiot! Oh! I wonder his mother does not rise from her grave to see how you use him. You're worse than a heathen—treating your own flesh and blood in that manner!" He attempted to touch the child, who, on finding himself with me, sobbed off his terror directly. At the first finger his father laid on him, however, he shrieked again louder than before, and struggled as if he would go into convulsions.
"You shall not meddle with him!" I continued. "He hates you—they all hate you—that's the truth! A happy family you have; and a pretty state you're come to!"
"I shall come to a prettier, yet, Nelly," laughed the misguided man, recovering his hardness. "At present, convey yourself and him away. And hark you, Heathcliff! clear you too quite from my reach and hearing. I wouldn't murder you to–night; unless, perhaps, I set the house on fire: but that's as my fancy goes."
While saying this he took a pint bottle of brandy from the dresser, and poured some into a tumbler.
"Nay, don't!" I entreated. "Mr. Hindley, do take warning. Have mercy on this unfortunate boy, if you care nothing for yourself!"
"Any one will do better for him than I shall," he answered.
"Have mercy on your own soul!" I said, endeavouring to snatch the glass from his hand.
"Not I! On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to perdition to punish its Maker," exclaimed the blasphemer. "Here's to its hearty damnation!"
He drank the spirits and impatiently bade us go; terminating his command with a sequel of horrid imprecations too bad to repeat or remember.
"It's a pity he cannot kill himself with drink," observed Heathcliff, muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut. "He's doing his very utmost; but his constitution defies him. Mr. Kenneth says he would wager his mare that he'll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton, and go to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the common course befall him."
I went into the kitchen, and sat down to lull my little lamb to sleep. Heathcliff, as I thought, walked through to the barn. It turned out afterwards that he only got as far as the other side the settle, when he flung himself on a bench by the wall, removed from the fire and remained silent.
I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began,—
It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat,
The mither beneath the mools heard that, when Miss Cathy, who had listened to the hubbub from her room, put her head in, and whispered,—"Are you alone, Nelly?"
"Yes, Miss," I replied.
She entered and approached the hearth. I, supposing she was going to say something, looked up. The expression of her face seemed disturbed and anxious. Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and she drew a breath; but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence. I resumed my song; not having forgotten her recent behaviour.
"Where's Heathcliff?" she said, interrupting me.
"About his work in the stable," was my answer.
He did not contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a doze. There followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two trickle from Catherine's cheek to the flags. Is she sorry for her shameful conduct?—I asked myself. That will be a novelty: but she may come to the point—as she will—I sha'n't help her! No, she felt small trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns.
"Oh, dear!" she cried at last. "I'm very unhappy!"
"A pity," observed I. "You're hard to please; so many friends and so few cares, and can't make yourself content!"
"Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?" she pursued, kneeling down by me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the world to indulge it.
"Is it worth keeping?" I inquired, less sulkily.
"Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I should do. To–day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been."
"Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?" I replied. "To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool."
"If you talk so, I won't tell you any more," she returned, peevishly rising to her feet. "I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick, and say whether I was wrong!"
"You accepted him! Then what good is it discussing the matter? You have pledged your word, and cannot retract."
"But say whether I should have done so—do!" she exclaimed in an irritated tone; chafing her hands together, and frowning.
"There are many things to be considered before that question can be answered properly," I said, sententiously. "First and foremost, do you love Mr. Edgar?"
"Who can help it? Of course I do," she answered.
Then I put her through the following catechism: for a girl of twenty–two it was not injudicious.
"Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?"
"Nonsense, I do—that's sufficient."
"By no means; you must say why?"
"Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with."
"Bad!" was my commentary.
"And because he is young and cheerful."
"Bad, still."
"And because he loves me."
"Indifferent, coming there."
"And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband."
"Worst of all. And now, say how you love him?"
"As everybody loves—You're silly, Nelly."
"Not at all—Answer."
"I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!"
"And why?"
"Nay; you are making a jest of it: it is exceedingly ill–natured! It's no jest to me!" said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to the fire.
"I'm very far from jesting, Miss Catherine," I replied. "You love Mr. Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him without that, probably; and with it you wouldn't, unless he possessed the four former attractions."
"No, to be sure not: I should only pity him—hate him, perhaps, if he were ugly, and a clown."
"But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world: handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is. What should hinder you from loving them?"
"If there be any, they are out of my way: I've seen none like Edgar."
"You may see some; and he won't always be handsome, and young, and may not always be rich."
"He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally."
"Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton."
"I don't want your permission for that—I shall marry him: and yet you have not told me whether I'm right."
"Perfectly right; if people be right to marry only for the present. And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy: where is the obstacle?"
"Here! and here!" replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and the other on her breast: "in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I'm convinced I'm wrong!"
"That's very strange! I cannot make it out."
"It's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it: I can't do it distinctly; but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel."
She seated herself by me again: her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trembled.
"Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?" she said, suddenly, after some minutes' reflection.
"Yes, now and then," I answered.
"And so do I. I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it—but take care not to smile at any part of it."
"Oh! don't, Miss Catherine!" I cried. "We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us. Come, come, be merry and like yourself! Look at little Hareton! he's dreaming nothing dreary. How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!"
"Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude! You remember him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing: nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to listen: it's not long; and I've no power to be merry to–night."
"I won't hear it, I won't hear it!" I repeated, hastily.
I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time.
"If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable."
"Because you are not fit to go there," I answered. "All sinners would be miserable in heaven."
"But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there."
"I tell you I won't hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I'll go to bed," I interrupted again.
She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.
"This is nothing," cried she: "I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other. I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn't have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire."
Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence. Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he stayed to hear no further. My companion, sitting on the ground, was prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or departure; but I started, and bade her hush!
"Why?" she asked, gazing nervously round.
"Joseph is here," I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his cartwheels up the road; "and Heathcliff will come in with him. I'm not sure whether he were not at the door this moment."
"Oh, he couldn't overhear me at the door!" said she. "Give me Hareton, while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you. I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that Heathcliff has no notion of these things. He has not, has he? He does not know what being in love is!"
"I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you," I returned; "and if you are his choice, he'll be the most unfortunate creature that ever was born! As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all! Have you considered how you'll bear the separation, and how he'll bear to be quite deserted in the world? Because, Miss Catherine—"
"He quite deserted! we separated!" she exclaimed, with an accent of indignation. "Who is to separate us, pray? They'll meet the fate of Milo! Not as long as I live, Ellen: for no mortal creature. Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that's not what I intend—that's not what I mean! I shouldn't be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded! He'll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime. Edgar must shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will, when he learns my true feelings towards him. Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother's power."
"With your husband's money, Miss Catherine?" I asked. "You'll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I'm hardly a judge, I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of young Linton."
"It is not," retorted she; "it is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims: and for Edgar's sake, too, to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation, if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.—My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable; and—"
She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown; but I jerked it forcibly away. I was out of patience with her folly!
"If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss," I said, "it only goes to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying; or else that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl. But trouble me with no more secrets: I'll not promise to keep them."
"You'll keep that?" she asked, eagerly.
"No, I'll not promise," I repeated.
She was about to insist, when the entrance of Joseph finished our conversation; and Catherine removed her seat to a corner, and nursed Hareton, while I made the supper. After it was cooked, my fellow–servant and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr. Hindley; and we didn't settle it till all was nearly cold. Then we came to the agreement that we would let him ask, if he wanted any; for we feared particularly to go into his presence when he had been some time alone.
"And how isn't that nowt comed in fro" th' field, be this time? What is he about? girt idle seeght!' demanded the old man, looking round for Heathcliff.
"I'll call him," I replied. "He's in the barn, I've no doubt."
I went and called, but got no answer. On returning, I whispered to Catherine that he had heard a good part of what she said, I was sure; and told how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her brother's conduct regarding him. She jumped up in a fine fright, flung Hareton on to the settle, and ran to seek for her friend herself; not taking leisure to consider why she was so flurried, or how her talk would have affected him. She was absent such a while that Joseph proposed we should wait no longer. He cunningly conjectured they were staying away in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing. They were "ill eneugh for ony fahl manners," he affirmed. And on their behalf he added that night a special prayer to the usual quarter–of–an–hour's supplication before meat, and would have tacked another to the end of the grace, had not his young mistress broken in upon him with a hurried command that he must run down the road, and, wherever Heathcliff had rambled, find and make him re–enter directly!
"I want to speak to him, and I must, before I go upstairs," she said. "And the gate is open: he is somewhere out of hearing; for he would not reply, though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could."
Joseph objected at first; she was too much in earnest, however, to suffer contradiction; and at last he placed his hat on his head, and walked grumbling forth. Meantime, Catherine paced up and down the floor, exclaiming—"I wonder where he is—I wonder where he can be! What did I say, Nelly? I've forgotten. Was he vexed at my bad humour this afternoon? Dear! tell me what I've said to grieve him? I do wish he'd come. I do wish he would!"
"What a noise for nothing!" I cried, though rather uneasy myself. "What a trifle scares you! It's surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie too sulky to speak to us in the hay–loft. I'll engage he's lurking there. See if I don't ferret him out!"
I departed to renew my search; its result was disappointment, and Joseph's quest ended in the same.
"Yon lad gets war und war!" observed he on re–entering. "He's left th" gate at t' full swing, and Miss's pony has trodden dahn two rigs o' corn, and plottered through, raight o'er into t' meadow! Hahsomdiver, t' maister "ull play t" devil to–morn, and he'll do weel. He's patience itsseln wi' sich careless, offald craters—patience itsseln he is! Bud he'll not be soa allus—yah's see, all on ye! Yah mun'n't drive him out of his heead for nowt!'
"Have you found Heathcliff, you ass?" interrupted Catherine. "Have you been looking for him, as I ordered?"
"I sud more likker look for th" horse,' he replied. "It "ud be to more sense. Bud I can look for norther horse nur man of a neeght loike this—as black as t" chimbley! und Heathcliff's noan t" chap to coom at my whistle—happen he'll be less hard o' hearing wi' ye!'
It was a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appeared inclined to thunder, and I said we had better all sit down; the approaching rain would be certain to bring him home without further trouble. However, Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquillity. She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no repose; and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road: where, heedless of my expostulations and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright. She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good passionate fit of crying.
About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building: a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east chimney–stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen–fire. We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us; and Joseph swung on to his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the patriarchs Noah and Lot, and, as in former times, spare the righteous, though he smote the ungodly. I felt some sentiment that it must be a judgment on us also. The Jonah, in my mind, was Mr. Earnshaw; and I shook the handle of his den that I might ascertain if he were yet living. He replied audibly enough, in a fashion which made my companion vociferate, more clamorously than before, that a wide distinction might be drawn between saints like himself and sinners like his master. But the uproar passed away in twenty minutes, leaving us all unharmed; excepting Cathy, who got thoroughly drenched for her obstinacy in refusing to take shelter, and standing bonnetless and shawl–less to catch as much water as she could with her hair and clothes. She came in and lay down on the settle, all soaked as she was, turning her face to the back, and putting her hands before it.
"Well, Miss!" I exclaimed, touching her shoulder; "you are not bent on getting your death, are you? Do you know what o'clock it is? Half–past twelve. Come, come to bed! there's no use waiting any longer on that foolish boy: he'll be gone to Gimmerton, and he'll stay there now. He guesses we shouldn't wait for him till this late hour: at least, he guesses that only Mr. Hindley would be up; and he'd rather avoid having the door opened by the master."
"Nay, nay, he's noan at Gimmerton," said Joseph. "I's niver wonder but he's at t" bothom of a bog–hoile. This visitation worn't for nowt, and I wod hev' ye to look out, Miss—yah muh be t' next. Thank Hivin for all! All warks togither for gooid to them as is chozzen, and piked out fro' th' rubbidge! Yah knaw whet t' Scripture ses.' And he began quoting several texts, referring us to chapters and verses where we might find them.
I, having vainly begged the wilful girl to rise and remove her wet things, left him preaching and her shivering, and betook myself to bed with little Hareton, who slept as fast as if everyone had been sleeping round him. I heard Joseph read on a while afterwards; then I distinguished his slow step on the ladder, and then I dropped asleep.
Coming down somewhat later than usual, I saw, by the sunbeams piercing the chinks of the shutters, Miss Catherine still seated near the fireplace. The house–door was ajar, too; light entered from its unclosed windows; Hindley had come out, and stood on the kitchen hearth, haggard and drowsy.
"What ails you, Cathy?" he was saying when I entered: "you look as dismal as a drowned whelp. Why are you so damp and pale, child?"
"I've been wet," she answered reluctantly, "and I'm cold, that's all."
"Oh, she is naughty!" I cried, perceiving the master to be tolerably sober. "She got steeped in the shower of yesterday evening, and there she has sat the night through, and I couldn't prevail on her to stir."
Mr. Earnshaw stared at us in surprise. "The night through," he repeated. "What kept her up? not fear of the thunder, surely? That was over hours since."
Neither of us wished to mention Heathcliff's absence, as long as we could conceal it; so I replied, I didn't know how she took it into her head to sit up; and she said nothing. The morning was fresh and cool; I threw back the lattice, and presently the room filled with sweet scents from the garden; but Catherine called peevishly to me, "Ellen, shut the window. I'm starving!" And her teeth chattered as she shrank closer to the almost extinguished embers.
"She's ill," said Hindley, taking her wrist; "I suppose that's the reason she would not go to bed. Damn it! I don't want to be troubled with more sickness here. What took you into the rain?"
"Running after t" lads, as usuald!' croaked Joseph, catching an opportunity from our hesitation to thrust in his evil tongue. "If I war yah, maister, I'd just slam t" boards i' their faces all on "em, gentle and simple! Never a day ut yah're off, but yon cat o" Linton comes sneaking hither; and Miss Nelly, shoo's a fine lass! shoo sits watching for ye i' t' kitchen; and as yah're in at one door, he's out at t'other; and, then, wer grand lady goes a–courting of her side! It's bonny behaviour, lurking amang t' fields, after twelve o' t' night, wi' that fahl, flaysome divil of a gipsy, Heathcliff! They think I'm blind; but I'm noan: nowt ut t' soart!—I seed young Linton boath coming and going, and I seed yah' (directing his discourse to me), "yah gooid fur nowt, slattenly witch! nip up and bolt into th" house, t' minute yah heard t' maister's horse–fit clatter up t' road.'
"Silence, eavesdropper!" cried Catherine; "none of your insolence before me! Edgar Linton came yesterday by chance, Hindley; and it was I who told him to be off: because I knew you would not like to have met him as you were."
"You lie, Cathy, no doubt," answered her brother, "and you are a confounded simpleton! But never mind Linton at present: tell me, were you not with Heathcliff last night? Speak the truth, now. You need not he afraid of harming him: though I hate him as much as ever, he did me a good turn a short time since that will make my conscience tender of breaking his neck. To prevent it, I shall send him about his business this very morning; and after he's gone, I'd advise you all to look sharp: I shall only have the more humour for you."
"I never saw Heathcliff last night," answered Catherine, beginning to sob bitterly: "and if you do turn him out of doors, I'll go with him. But, perhaps, you'll never have an opportunity: perhaps, he's gone." Here she burst into uncontrollable grief, and the remainder of her words were inarticulate.
Hindley lavished on her a torrent of scornful abuse, and bade her get to her room immediately, or she shouldn't cry for nothing! I obliged her to obey; and I shall never forget what a scene she acted when we reached her chamber: it terrified me. I thought she was going mad, and I begged Joseph to run for the doctor. It proved the commencement of delirium: Mr. Kenneth, as soon as he saw her, pronounced her dangerously ill; she had a fever. He bled her, and he told me to let her live on whey and water–gruel, and take care she did not throw herself downstairs or out of the window; and then he left: for he had enough to do in the parish, where two or three miles was the ordinary distance between cottage and cottage.
Though I cannot say I made a gentle nurse, and Joseph and the master were no better, and though our patient was as wearisome and headstrong as a patient could be, she weathered it through. Old Mrs. Linton paid us several visits, to be sure, and set things to rights, and scolded and ordered us all; and when Catherine was convalescent, she insisted on conveying her to Thrushcross Grange: for which deliverance we were very grateful. But the poor dame had reason to repent of her kindness: she and her husband both took the fever, and died within a few days of each other.
Our young lady returned to us saucier and more passionate, and haughtier than ever. Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the thunder–storm; and, one day, I had the misfortune, when she had provoked me exceedingly, to lay the blame of his disappearance on her: where indeed it belonged, as she well knew. From that period, for several months, she ceased to hold any communication with me, save in the relation of a mere servant. Joseph fell under a ban also: he would speak his mind, and lecture her all the same as if she were a little girl; and she esteemed herself a woman, and our mistress, and thought that her recent illness gave her a claim to be treated with consideration. Then the doctor had said that she would not bear crossing much; she ought to have her own way; and it was nothing less than murder in her eyes for any one to presume to stand up and contradict her. From Mr. Earnshaw and his companions she kept aloof; and tutored by Kenneth, and serious threats of a fit that often attended her rages, her brother allowed her whatever she pleased to demand, and generally avoided aggravating her fiery temper. He was rather too indulgent in humouring her caprices; not from affection, but from pride: he wished earnestly to see her bring honour to the family by an alliance with the Lintons, and as long as she let him alone she might trample on us like slaves, for aught he cared! Edgar Linton, as multitudes have been before and will be after him, was infatuated: and believed himself the happiest man alive on the day he led her to Gimmerton Chapel, three years subsequent to his father's death.
Much against my inclination, I was persuaded to leave Wuthering Heights and accompany her here, Little Hareton was nearly five years old, and I had just begun to teach him his letters. We made a sad parting; but Catherine's tears were more powerful than ours. When I refused to go, and when she found her entreaties did not move me, she went lamenting to her husband and brother. The former offered me munificent wages; the latter ordered me to pack up: he wanted no women in the house, he said, now that there was no mistress; and as to Hareton, the curate should take him in hand, by–and–by. And so I had but one choice left: to do as I was ordered. I told the master he got rid of all decent people only to run to ruin a little faster; I kissed Hareton, said good–by; and since then he has been a stranger: and it's very queer to think it, but I've no doubt he has completely forgotten all about Ellen Dean, and that he was ever more than all the world to her and she to him! |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 13 | At this point of the housekeeper's story she chanced to glance towards the time–piece over the chimney; and was in amazement on seeing the minute–hand measure half–past one. She would not hear of staying a second longer: in truth, I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of her narrative myself. And now that she is vanished to her rest, and I have meditated for another hour or two, I shall summon courage to go also, in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs.
A charming introduction to a hermit's life! Four weeks' torture, tossing, and sickness! Oh, these bleak winds and bitter northern skies, and impassable roads, and dilatory country surgeons! And oh, this dearth of the human physiognomy! and, worse than all, the terrible intimation of Kenneth that I need not expect to be out of doors till spring!
Mr. Heathcliff has just honoured me with a call. About seven days ago he sent me a brace of grouse—the last of the season. Scoundrel! He is not altogether guiltless in this illness of mine; and that I had a great mind to tell him. But, alas! how could I offend a man who was charitable enough to sit at my bedside a good hour, and talk on some other subject than pills and draughts, blisters and leeches? This is quite an easy interval. I am too weak to read; yet I feel as if I could enjoy something interesting. Why not have up Mrs. Dean to finish her tale? I can recollect its chief incidents, as far as she had gone. Yes: I remember her hero had run off, and never been heard of for three years; and the heroine was married. I'll ring: she'll be delighted to find me capable of talking cheerfully. Mrs. Dean came.
"It wants twenty minutes, sir, to taking the medicine," she commenced.
"Away, away with it!" I replied; "I desire to have—"
"The doctor says you must drop the powders."
"With all my heart! Don't interrupt me. Come and take your seat here. Keep your fingers from that bitter phalanx of vials. Draw your knitting out of your pocket—that will do—now continue the history of Mr. Heathcliff, from where you left off, to the present day. Did he finish his education on the Continent, and come back a gentleman? or did he get a sizar's place at college, or escape to America, and earn honours by drawing blood from his foster–country? or make a fortune more promptly on the English highways?"
"He may have done a little in all these vocations, Mr. Lockwood; but I couldn't give my word for any. I stated before that I didn't know how he gained his money; neither am I aware of the means he took to raise his mind from the savage ignorance into which it was sunk: but, with your leave, I'll proceed in my own fashion, if you think it will amuse and not weary you. Are you feeling better this morning?"
"Much."
"That's good news." |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 14 | I got Miss Catherine and myself to Thrushcross Grange; and, to my agreeable disappointment, she behaved infinitely better than I dared to expect. She seemed almost over–fond of Mr. Linton; and even to his sister she showed plenty of affection. They were both very attentive to her comfort, certainly. It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn. There were no mutual concessions: one stood erect, and the others yielded: and who can be ill–natured and bad–tempered when they encounter neither opposition nor indifference? I observed that Mr. Edgar had a deep–rooted fear of ruffling her humour. He concealed it from her; but if ever he heard me answer sharply, or saw any other servant grow cloudy at some imperious order of hers, he would show his trouble by a frown of displeasure that never darkened on his own account. He many a time spoke sternly to me about my pertness; and averred that the stab of a knife could not inflict a worse pang than he suffered at seeing his lady vexed. Not to grieve a kind master, I learned to be less touchy; and, for the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it. Catherine had seasons of gloom and silence now and then: they were respected with sympathising silence by her husband, who ascribed them to an alteration in her constitution, produced by her perilous illness; as she was never subject to depression of spirits before. The return of sunshine was welcomed by answering sunshine from him. I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness.
It ended. Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts. On a mellow evening in September, I was coming from the garden with a heavy basket of apples which I had been gathering. It had got dusk, and the moon looked over the high wall of the court, causing undefined shadows to lurk in the corners of the numerous projecting portions of the building. I set my burden on the house–steps by the kitchen–door, and lingered to rest, and drew in a few more breaths of the soft, sweet air; my eyes were on the moon, and my back to the entrance, when I heard a voice behind me say,—"Nelly, is that you?"
It was a deep voice, and foreign in tone; yet there was something in the manner of pronouncing my name which made it sound familiar. I turned about to discover who spoke, fearfully; for the doors were shut, and I had seen nobody on approaching the steps. Something stirred in the porch; and, moving nearer, I distinguished a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with dark face and hair. He leant against the side, and held his fingers on the latch as if intending to open for himself. "Who can it be?" I thought. "Mr. Earnshaw? Oh, no! The voice has no resemblance to his."
"I have waited here an hour," he resumed, while I continued staring; "and the whole of that time all round has been as still as death. I dared not enter. You do not know me? Look, I'm not a stranger!"
A ray fell on his features; the cheeks were sallow, and half covered with black whiskers; the brows lowering, the eyes deep–set and singular. I remembered the eyes.
"What!" I cried, uncertain whether to regard him as a worldly visitor, and I raised my hands in amazement. "What! you come back? Is it really you? Is it?"
"Yes, Heathcliff," he replied, glancing from me up to the windows, which reflected a score of glittering moons, but showed no lights from within. "Are they at home? where is she? Nelly, you are not glad! you needn't be so disturbed. Is she here? Speak! I want to have one word with her—your mistress. Go, and say some person from Gimmerton desires to see her."
"How will she take it?" I exclaimed. "What will she do? The surprise bewilders me—it will put her out of her head! And you are Heathcliff! But altered! Nay, there's no comprehending it. Have you been for a soldier?"
"Go and carry my message," he interrupted, impatiently. "I'm in hell till you do!"
He lifted the latch, and I entered; but when I got to the parlour where Mr. and Mrs. Linton were, I could not persuade myself to proceed. At length I resolved on making an excuse to ask if they would have the candles lighted, and I opened the door.
They sat together in a window whose lattice lay back against the wall, and displayed, beyond the garden trees, and the wild green park, the valley of Gimmerton, with a long line of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pass the chapel, as you may have noticed, the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen). Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour; but our old house was invisible; it rather dips down on the other side. Both the room and its occupants, and the scene they gazed on, looked wondrously peaceful. I shrank reluctantly from performing my errand; and was actually going away leaving it unsaid, after having put my question about the candles, when a sense of my folly compelled me to return, and mutter, "A person from Gimmerton wishes to see you ma'am."
"What does he want?" asked Mrs. Linton.
"I did not question him," I answered.
"Well, close the curtains, Nelly," she said; "and bring up tea. I'll be back again directly."
She quitted the apartment; Mr. Edgar inquired, carelessly, who it was.
"Some one mistress does not expect," I replied. "That Heathcliff—you recollect him, sir—who used to live at Mr. Earnshaw's."
"What! the gipsy—the ploughboy?" he cried. "Why did you not say so to Catherine?"
"Hush! you must not call him by those names, master," I said. "She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. She was nearly heartbroken when he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her."
Mr. Linton walked to a window on the other side of the room that overlooked the court. He unfastened it, and leant out. I suppose they were below, for he exclaimed quickly: "Don't stand there, love! Bring the person in, if it be anyone particular." Ere long, I heard the click of the latch, and Catherine flew up–stairs, breathless and wild; too excited to show gladness: indeed, by her face, you would rather have surmised an awful calamity.
"Oh, Edgar, Edgar!" she panted, flinging her arms round his neck. "Oh, Edgar darling! Heathcliff's come back—he is!" And she tightened her embrace to a squeeze.
"Well, well," cried her husband, crossly, "don't strangle me for that! He never struck me as such a marvellous treasure. There is no need to be frantic!"
"I know you didn't like him," she answered, repressing a little the intensity of her delight. "Yet, for my sake, you must be friends now. Shall I tell him to come up?"
"Here," he said, "into the parlour?"
"Where else?" she asked.
He looked vexed, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for him. Mrs. Linton eyed him with a droll expression—half angry, half laughing at his fastidiousness.
"No," she added, after a while; "I cannot sit in the kitchen. Set two tables here, Ellen: one for your master and Miss Isabella, being gentry; the other for Heathcliff and myself, being of the lower orders. Will that please you, dear? Or must I have a fire lighted elsewhere? If so, give directions. I'll run down and secure my guest. I'm afraid the joy is too great to be real!"
She was about to dart off again; but Edgar arrested her.
"You bid him step up," he said, addressing me; "and, Catherine, try to be glad, without being absurd. The whole household need not witness the sight of your welcoming a runaway servant as a brother."
I descended, and found Heathcliff waiting under the porch, evidently anticipating an invitation to enter. He followed my guidance without waste of words, and I ushered him into the presence of the master and mistress, whose flushed cheeks betrayed signs of warm talking. But the lady's glowed with another feeling when her friend appeared at the door: she sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton; and then she seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his. Now, fully revealed by the fire and candlelight, I was amazed, more than ever, to behold the transformation of Heathcliff. He had grown a tall, athletic, well–formed man; beside whom my master seemed quite slender and youth–like. His upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Mr. Linton's; it looked intelligent, and retained no marks of former degradation. A half–civilised ferocity lurked yet in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued; and his manner was even dignified: quite divested of roughness, though stern for grace. My master's surprise equalled or exceeded mine: he remained for a minute at a loss how to address the ploughboy, as he had called him. Heathcliff dropped his slight hand, and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak.
"Sit down, sir," he said, at length. "Mrs. Linton, recalling old times, would have me give you a cordial reception; and, of course, I am gratified when anything occurs to please her."
"And I also," answered Heathcliff, "especially if it be anything in which I have a part. I shall stay an hour or two willingly."
He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his to her often: a quick glance now and then sufficed; but it flashed back, each time more confidently, the undisguised delight he drank from hers. They were too much absorbed in their mutual joy to suffer embarrassment. Not so Mr. Edgar: he grew pale with pure annoyance: a feeling that reached its climax when his lady rose, and stepping across the rug, seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself.
"I shall think it a dream to–morrow!" she cried. "I shall not be able to believe that I have seen, and touched, and spoken to you once more. And yet, cruel Heathcliff! you don't deserve this welcome. To be absent and silent for three years, and never to think of me!"
"A little more than you have thought of me," he murmured. "I heard of your marriage, Cathy, not long since; and, while waiting in the yard below, I meditated this plan—just to have one glimpse of your face, a stare of surprise, perhaps, and pretended pleasure; afterwards settle my score with Hindley; and then prevent the law by doing execution on myself. Your welcome has put these ideas out of my mind; but beware of meeting me with another aspect next time! Nay, you'll not drive me off again. You were really sorry for me, were you? Well, there was cause. I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard your voice; and you must forgive me, for I struggled only for you!"
"Catherine, unless we are to have cold tea, please to come to the table," interrupted Linton, striving to preserve his ordinary tone, and a due measure of politeness. "Mr. Heathcliff will have a long walk, wherever he may lodge to–night; and I'm thirsty."
She took her post before the urn; and Miss Isabella came, summoned by the bell; then, having handed their chairs forward, I left the room. The meal hardly endured ten minutes. Catherine's cup was never filled: she could neither eat nor drink. Edgar had made a slop in his saucer, and scarcely swallowed a mouthful. Their guest did not protract his stay that evening above an hour longer. I asked, as he departed, if he went to Gimmerton?
"No, to Wuthering Heights," he answered: "Mr. Earnshaw invited me, when I called this morning."
Mr. Earnshaw invited him! and he called on Mr. Earnshaw! I pondered this sentence painfully, after he was gone. Is he turning out a bit of a hypocrite, and coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak? I mused: I had a presentiment in the bottom of my heart that he had better have remained away.
About the middle of the night, I was wakened from my first nap by Mrs. Linton gliding into my chamber, taking a seat on my bedside, and pulling me by the hair to rouse me.
"I cannot rest, Ellen," she said, by way of apology. "And I want some living creature to keep me company in my happiness! Edgar is sulky, because I'm glad of a thing that does not interest him: he refuses to open his mouth, except to utter pettish, silly speeches; and he affirmed I was cruel and selfish for wishing to talk when he was so sick and sleepy. He always contrives to be sick at the least cross! I gave a few sentences of commendation to Heathcliff, and he, either for a headache or a pang of envy, began to cry: so I got up and left him."
"What use is it praising Heathcliff to him?" I answered. "As lads they had an aversion to each other, and Heathcliff would hate just as much to hear him praised: it's human nature. Let Mr. Linton alone about him, unless you would like an open quarrel between them."
"But does it not show great weakness?" pursued she. "I'm not envious: I never feel hurt at the brightness of Isabella's yellow hair and the whiteness of her skin, at her dainty elegance, and the fondness all the family exhibit for her. Even you, Nelly, if we have a dispute sometimes, you back Isabella at once; and I yield like a foolish mother: I call her a darling, and flatter her into a good temper. It pleases her brother to see us cordial, and that pleases me. But they are very much alike: they are spoiled children, and fancy the world was made for their accommodation; and though I humour both, I think a smart chastisement might improve them all the same."
"You're mistaken, Mrs. Linton," said I. "They humour you: I know what there would be to do if they did not. You can well afford to indulge their passing whims as long as their business is to anticipate all your desires. You may, however, fall out, at last, over something of equal consequence to both sides; and then those you term weak are very capable of being as obstinate as you."
"And then we shall fight to the death, sha'n't we, Nelly?" she returned, laughing. "No! I tell you, I have such faith in Linton's love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate."
I advised her to value him the more for his affection.
"I do," she answered, "but he needn't resort to whining for trifles. It is childish and, instead of melting into tears because I said that Heathcliff was now worthy of anyone's regard, and it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend, he ought to have said it for me, and been delighted from sympathy. He must get accustomed to him, and he may as well like him: considering how Heathcliff has reason to object to him, I'm sure he behaved excellently!"
"What do you think of his going to Wuthering Heights?" I inquired. "He is reformed in every respect, apparently: quite a Christian: offering the right hand of fellowship to his enemies all around!"
"He explained it," she replied. "I wonder as much as you. He said he called to gather information concerning me from you, supposing you resided there still; and Joseph told Hindley, who came out and fell to questioning him of what he had been doing, and how he had been living; and finally, desired him to walk in. There were some persons sitting at cards; Heathcliff joined them; my brother lost some money to him, and, finding him plentifully supplied, he requested that he would come again in the evening: to which he consented. Hindley is too reckless to select his acquaintance prudently: he doesn't trouble himself to reflect on the causes he might have for mistrusting one whom he has basely injured. But Heathcliff affirms his principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor is a wish to instal himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where we lived together; and likewise a hope that I shall have more opportunities of seeing him there than I could have if he settled in Gimmerton. He means to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights; and doubtless my brother's covetousness will prompt him to accept the terms: he was always greedy; though what he grasps with one hand he flings away with the other."
"It's a nice place for a young man to fix his dwelling in!" said I. "Have you no fear of the consequences, Mrs. Linton?"
"None for my friend," she replied: "his strong head will keep him from danger; a little for Hindley: but he can't be made morally worse than he is; and I stand between him and bodily harm. The event of this evening has reconciled me to God and humanity! I had risen in angry rebellion against Providence. Oh, I've endured very, very bitter misery, Nelly! If that creature knew how bitter, he'd be ashamed to cloud its removal with idle petulance. It was kindness for him which induced me to bear it alone: had I expressed the agony I frequently felt, he would have been taught to long for its alleviation as ardently as I. However, it's over, and I'll take no revenge on his folly; I can afford to suffer anything hereafter! Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I'd not only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it; and, as a proof, I'll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Good–night! I'm an angel!"
In this self–complacent conviction she departed; and the success of her fulfilled resolution was obvious on the morrow: Mr. Linton had not only abjured his peevishness (though his spirits seemed still subdued by Catherine's exuberance of vivacity), but he ventured no objection to her taking Isabella with her to Wuthering Heights in the afternoon; and she rewarded him with such a summer of sweetness and affection in return as made the house a paradise for several days; both master and servants profiting from the perpetual sunshine.
Heathcliff—Mr. Heathcliff I should say in future—used the liberty of visiting at Thrushcross Grange cautiously, at first: he seemed estimating how far its owner would bear his intrusion. Catherine, also, deemed it judicious to moderate her expressions of pleasure in receiving him; and he gradually established his right to be expected. He retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable; and that served to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling. My master's uneasiness experienced a lull, and further circumstances diverted it into another channel for a space.
His new source of trouble sprang from the not anticipated misfortune of Isabella Linton evincing a sudden and irresistible attraction towards the tolerated guest. She was at that time a charming young lady of eighteen; infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen feelings, and a keen temper, too, if irritated. Her brother, who loved her tenderly, was appalled at this fantastic preference. Leaving aside the degradation of an alliance with a nameless man, and the possible fact that his property, in default of heirs male, might pass into such a one's power, he had sense to comprehend Heathcliff's disposition: to know that, though his exterior was altered, his mind was unchangeable and unchanged. And he dreaded that mind: it revolted him: he shrank forebodingly from the idea of committing Isabella to its keeping. He would have recoiled still more had he been aware that her attachment rose unsolicited, and was bestowed where it awakened no reciprocation of sentiment; for the minute he discovered its existence he laid the blame on Heathcliff's deliberate designing.
We had all remarked, during some time, that Miss Linton fretted and pined over something. She grew cross and wearisome; snapping at and teasing Catherine continually, at the imminent risk of exhausting her limited patience. We excused her, to a certain extent, on the plea of ill–health: she was dwindling and fading before our eyes. But one day, when she had been peculiarly wayward, rejecting her breakfast, complaining that the servants did not do what she told them; that the mistress would allow her to be nothing in the house, and Edgar neglected her; that she had caught a cold with the doors being left open, and we let the parlour fire go out on purpose to vex her, with a hundred yet more frivolous accusations, Mrs. Linton peremptorily insisted that she should get to bed; and, having scolded her heartily, threatened to send for the doctor. Mention of Kenneth caused her to exclaim, instantly, that her health was perfect, and it was only Catherine's harshness which made her unhappy.
"How can you say I am harsh, you naughty fondling?" cried the mistress, amazed at the unreasonable assertion. "You are surely losing your reason. When have I been hash, tell me?"
"Yesterday," sobbed Isabella, "and now!"
"Yesterday!" said her sister–in–law. "On what occasion?"
"In our walk along the moor: you told me to ramble where I pleased, while you sauntered on with Mr. Heathcliff?"
"And that's your notion of harshness?" said Catherine, laughing. "It was no hint that your company was superfluous? We didn't care whether you kept with us or not; I merely thought Heathcliff's talk would have nothing entertaining for your ears."
"Oh, no," wept the young lady; "you wished me away, because you knew I liked to be there!"
"Is she sane?" asked Mrs. Linton, appealing to me. "I'll repeat our conversation, word for word, Isabella; and you point out any charm it could have had for you."
"I don't mind the conversation," she answered: "I wanted to be with—"
"Well?" said Catherine, perceiving her hesitate to complete the sentence.
"With him: and I won't be always sent off!" she continued, kindling up. "You are a dog in the manger, Cathy, and desire no one to be loved but yourself!"
"You are an impertinent little monkey!" exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in surprise. "But I'll not believe this idiotcy! It is impossible that you can covet the admiration of Heathcliff—that you consider him an agreeable person! I hope I have misunderstood you, Isabella?"
"No, you have not," said the infatuated girl. "I love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you would let him!"
"I wouldn't be you for a kingdom, then!" Catherine declared, emphatically: and she seemed to speak sincerely. "Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness. Tell her what Heathcliff is: an unreclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not a rough diamond—a pearl–containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations: avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his friend—so much so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let you fall into his trap."
Miss Linton regarded her sister–in–law with indignation.
"For shame! for shame!" she repeated, angrily. "You are worse than twenty foes, you poisonous friend!"
"Ah! you won't believe me, then?" said Catherine. "You think I speak from wicked selfishness?"
"I'm certain you do," retorted Isabella; "and I shudder at you!"
"Good!" cried the other. "Try for yourself, if that be your spirit: I have done, and yield the argument to your saucy insolence."—
"And I must suffer for her egotism!" she sobbed, as Mrs. Linton left the room. "All, all is against me: she has blighted my single consolation. But she uttered falsehoods, didn't she? Mr. Heathcliff is not a fiend: he has an honourable soul, and a true one, or how could he remember her?"
"Banish him from your thoughts, Miss," I said. "He's a bird of bad omen: no mate for you." Mrs. Linton spoke strongly, and yet I can't contradict her. She is better acquainted with his heart than I, or any one besides; and she never would represent him as worse than he is. Honest people don't hide their deeds. How has he been living? how has he got rich? why is he staying at Wuthering Heights, the house of a man whom he abhors? They say Mr. Earnshaw is worse and worse since he came. They sit up all night together continually, and Hindley has been borrowing money on his land, and does nothing but play and drink: I heard only a week ago—it was Joseph who told me—I met him at Gimmerton: "Nelly," he said, "we's hae a crowner's "quest enow, at ahr folks". One on 'em 's a'most getten his finger cut off wi' hauding t' other fro' stickin' hisseln loike a cawlf. That's maister, yeah knaw, 'at 's soa up o' going tuh t' grand 'sizes. He's noan feared o' t' bench o' judges, norther Paul, nur Peter, nur John, nur Matthew, nor noan on 'em, not he! He fair likes—he langs to set his brazened face agean "em! And yon bonny lad Heathcliff, yah mind, he's a rare 'un. He can girn a laugh as well 's onybody at a raight divil's jest. Does he niver say nowt of his fine living amang us, when he goes to t' Grange? This is t' way on 't:—up at sun–down: dice, brandy, cloised shutters, und can'le–light till next day at noon: then, t'fooil gangs banning und raving to his cham'er, makking dacent fowks dig thur fingers i' thur lugs fur varry shame; un' the knave, why he can caint his brass, un' ate, un' sleep, un' off to his neighbour's to gossip wi' t' wife. I' course, he tells Dame Catherine how her fathur's goold runs into his pocket, and her fathur's son gallops down t' broad road, while he flees afore to oppen t' pikes!" Now, Miss Linton, Joseph is an old rascal, but no liar; and, if his account of Heathcliff's conduct be true, you would never think of desiring such a husband, would you?"
"You are leagued with the rest, Ellen!" she replied. "I'll not listen to your slanders. What malevolence you must have to wish to convince me that there is no happiness in the world!"
Whether she would have got over this fancy if left to herself, or persevered in nursing it perpetually, I cannot say: she had little time to reflect. The day after, there was a justice–meeting at the next town; my master was obliged to attend; and Mr. Heathcliff, aware of his absence, called rather earlier than usual. Catherine and Isabella were sitting in the library, on hostile terms, but silent: the latter alarmed at her recent indiscretion, and the disclosure she had made of her secret feelings in a transient fit of passion; the former, on mature consideration, really offended with her companion; and, if she laughed again at her pertness, inclined to make it no laughing matter to her. She did laugh as she saw Heathcliff pass the window. I was sweeping the hearth, and I noticed a mischievous smile on her lips. Isabella, absorbed in her meditations, or a book, remained till the door opened; and it was too late to attempt an escape, which she would gladly have done had it been practicable.
"Come in, that's right!" exclaimed the mistress, gaily, pulling a chair to the fire. "Here are two people sadly in need of a third to thaw the ice between them; and you are the very one we should both of us choose. Heathcliff, I'm proud to show you, at last, somebody that dotes on you more than myself. I expect you to feel flattered. Nay, it's not Nelly; don't look at her! My poor little sister–in–law is breaking her heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power to be Edgar's brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha'n't run off," she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the confounded girl, who had risen indignantly. "We were quarrelling like cats about you, Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of devotion and admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever, and send my image into eternal oblivion!"
"Catherine!" said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, "I'd thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression."
As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor.
"By no means!" cried Mrs. Linton in answer. "I won't be named a dog in the manger again. You shall stay: now then! Heathcliff, why don't you evince satisfaction at my pleasant news? Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. I'm sure she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen? And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterday's walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable."
"I think you belie her," said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them. "She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!"
And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. The poor thing couldn't bear that; she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of red.
"There's a tigress!" exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain. "Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him. Can't you fancy the conclusions he'll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution—you must beware of your eyes."
"I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me," he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. "But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not speaking the truth, were you?"
"I assure you I was," she returned. "She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But don't notice it further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all. I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up."
"And I like her too ill to attempt it," said he, "except in a very ghoulish fashion. You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two: they detestably resemble Linton's."
"Delectably!" observed Catherine. "They are dove's eyes—angel's!"
"She's her brother's heir, is she not?" he asked, after a brief silence.
"I should be sorry to think so," returned his companion. "Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour's goods; remember this neighbour's goods are mine."
"If they were mine, they would be none the less that," said Heathcliff; "but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise."
From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts. The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening. I saw him smile to himself—grin rather—and lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment.
I determined to watch his movements. My heart invariably cleaved to the master's, in preference to Catherine's side: with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she—she could not be called opposite, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr. Heathcliff quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also. His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 15 | Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I've got up in a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the farm. I've persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how people talked regarding his ways; and then I've recollected his confirmed bad habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched from re–entering the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken at my word.
One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to Gimmerton. It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry. I came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your left hand; a rough sand–pillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north side, on the east, G., and on the south–west, T. G. It serves as a guide–post to the Grange, the Heights, and village. The sun shone yellow on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why, but all at once a gush of child's sensations flowed into my heart. Hindley and I held it a favourite spot twenty years before. I gazed long at the weather–worn block; and, stooping down, perceived a hole near the bottom still full of snail–shells and pebbles, which we were fond of storing there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as reality, it appeared that I beheld my early playmate seated on the withered turf: his dark, square head bent forward, and his little hand scooping out the earth with a piece of slate. "Poor Hindley!" I exclaimed, involuntarily. I started: my bodily eye was cheated into a momentary belief that the child lifted its face and stared straight into mine! It vanished in a twinkling; but immediately I felt an irresistible yearning to be at the Heights. Superstition urged me to comply with this impulse: supposing he should be dead! I thought—or should die soon!—supposing it were a sign of death! The nearer I got to the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching sight of it I trembled in every limb. The apparition had outstripped me: it stood looking through the gate. That was my first idea on observing an elf–locked, brown–eyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the bars. Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, my Hareton, not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since.
"God bless thee, darling!" I cried, forgetting instantaneously my foolish fears. "Hareton, it's Nelly! Nelly, thy nurse."
He retreated out of arm's length, and picked up a large flint.
"I am come to see thy father, Hareton," I added, guessing from the action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not recognised as one with me.
He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but could not stay his hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued, from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses, which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking expression of malignity. You may be certain this grieved more than angered me. Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it to propitiate him. He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him. I showed another, keeping it out of his reach.
"Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn?" I inquired. "The curate?"
"Damn the curate, and thee! Gie me that," he replied.
"Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it," said I. "Who's your master?"
"Devil daddy," was his answer.
"And what do you learn from daddy?" I continued.
He jumped at the fruit; I raised it higher. "What does he teach you?" I asked.
"Naught," said he, "but to keep out of his gait. Daddy cannot bide me, because I swear at him."
"Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy?" I observed.
"Ay—nay," he drawled.
"Who, then?"
"Heathcliff."
"I asked if he liked Mr. Heathcliff."
"Ay!" he answered again.
Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the sentences—"I known't: he pays dad back what he gies to me—he curses daddy for cursing me. He says I mun do as I will."
"And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then?" I pursued.
"No, I was told the curate should have his—teeth dashed down his—throat, if he stepped over the threshold—Heathcliff had promised that!"
I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate. He went up the walk, and entered the house; but, instead of Hindley, Heathcliff appeared on the door–stones; and I turned directly and ran down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I gained the guide–post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a goblin. This is not much connected with Miss Isabella's affair: except that it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and doing my utmost to cheek the spread of such bad influence at the Grange: even though I should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs. Linton's pleasure.
The next time Heathcliff came my young lady chanced to be feeding some pigeons in the court. She had never spoken a word to her sister–in–law for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining, and we found it a great comfort. Heathcliff had not the habit of bestowing a single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew. Now, as soon as he beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping survey of the house–front. I was standing by the kitchen–window, but I drew out of sight. He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said something: she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away; to prevent it, he laid his hand on her arm. She averted her face: he apparently put some question which she had no mind to answer. There was another rapid glance at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her.
"Judas! Traitor!" I ejaculated. "You are a hypocrite, too, are you? A deliberate deceiver."
"Who is, Nelly?" said Catherine's voice at my elbow: I had been over–intent on watching the pair outside to mark her entrance.
"Your worthless friend!" I answered, warmly: "the sneaking rascal yonder. Ah, he has caught a glimpse of us—he is coming in! I wonder will he have the heart to find a plausible excuse for making love to Miss, when he told you he hated her?"
Mrs. Linton saw Isabella tear herself free, and run into the garden; and a minute after, Heathcliff opened the door. I couldn't withhold giving some loose to my indignation; but Catherine angrily insisted on silence, and threatened to order me out of the kitchen, if I dared to be so presumptuous as to put in my insolent tongue.
"To hear you, people might think you were the mistress!" she cried. "You want setting down in your right place! Heathcliff, what are you about, raising this stir? I said you must let Isabella alone!—I beg you will, unless you are tired of being received here, and wish Linton to draw the bolts against you!"
"God forbid that he should try!" answered the black villain. I detested him just then. "God keep him meek and patient! Every day I grow madder after sending him to heaven!"
"Hush!" said Catherine, shutting the inner door! "Don't vex me. Why have you disregarded my request? Did she come across you on purpose?"
"What is it to you?" he growled. "I have a right to kiss her, if she chooses; and you have no right to object. I am not your husband: you needn't be jealous of me!"
"I'm not jealous of you," replied the mistress; "I'm jealous for you. Clear your face: you sha'n't scowl at me! If you like Isabella, you shall marry her. But do you like her? Tell the truth, Heathcliff! There, you won't answer. I'm certain you don't."
"And would Mr. Linton approve of his sister marrying that man?" I inquired.
"Mr. Linton should approve," returned my lady, decisively.
"He might spare himself the trouble," said Heathcliff: "I could do as well without his approbation. And as to you, Catherine, I have a mind to speak a few words now, while we are at it. I want you to be aware that I know you have treated me infernally—infernally! Do you hear? And if you flatter yourself that I don't perceive it, you are a fool; and if you think I can be consoled by sweet words, you are an idiot: and if you fancy I'll suffer unrevenged, I'll convince you of the contrary, in a very little while! Meantime, thank you for telling me your sister–in–law's secret: I swear I'll make the most of it. And stand you aside!"
"What new phase of his character is this?" exclaimed Mrs. Linton, in amazement. "I've treated you infernally—and you'll take your revenge! How will you take it, ungrateful brute? How have I treated you infernally?"
"I seek no revenge on you," replied Heathcliff, less vehemently. "That's not the plan. The tyrant grinds down his slaves and they don't turn against him; they crush those beneath them. You are welcome to torture me to death for your amusement, only allow me to amuse myself a little in the same style, and refrain from insult as much as you are able. Having levelled my palace, don't erect a hovel and complacently admire your own charity in giving me that for a home. If I imagined you really wished me to marry Isabel, I'd cut my throat!"
"Oh, the evil is that I am not jealous, is it?" cried Catherine. "Well, I won't repeat my offer of a wife: it is as bad as offering Satan a lost soul. Your bliss lies, like his, in inflicting misery. You prove it. Edgar is restored from the ill–temper he gave way to at your coming; I begin to be secure and tranquil; and you, restless to know us at peace, appear resolved on exciting a quarrel. Quarrel with Edgar, if you please, Heathcliff, and deceive his sister: you'll hit on exactly the most efficient method of revenging yourself on me."
The conversation ceased. Mrs. Linton sat down by the fire, flushed and gloomy. The spirit which served her was growing intractable: she could neither lay nor control it. He stood on the hearth with folded arms, brooding on his evil thoughts; and in this position I left them to seek the master, who was wondering what kept Catherine below so long.
"Ellen," said he, when I entered, "have you seen your mistress?"
"Yes; she's in the kitchen, sir," I answered. "She's sadly put out by Mr. Heathcliff's behaviour: and, indeed, I do think it's time to arrange his visits on another footing. There's harm in being too soft, and now it's come to this—." And I related the scene in the court, and, as near as I dared, the whole subsequent dispute. I fancied it could not be very prejudicial to Mrs. Linton; unless she made it so afterwards, by assuming the defensive for her guest. Edgar Linton had difficulty in hearing me to the close. His first words revealed that he did not clear his wife of blame.
"This is insufferable!" he exclaimed. "It is disgraceful that she should own him for a friend, and force his company on me! Call me two men out of the hall, Ellen. Catherine shall linger no longer to argue with the low ruffian—I have humoured her enough."
He descended, and bidding the servants wait in the passage, went, followed by me, to the kitchen. Its occupants had recommenced their angry discussion: Mrs. Linton, at least, was scolding with renewed vigour; Heathcliff had moved to the window, and hung his head, somewhat cowed by her violent rating apparently. He saw the master first, and made a hasty motion that she should be silent; which she obeyed, abruptly, on discovering the reason of his intimation.
"How is this?" said Linton, addressing her; "what notion of propriety must you have to remain here, after the language which has been held to you by that blackguard? I suppose, because it is his ordinary talk you think nothing of it: you are habituated to his baseness, and, perhaps, imagine I can get used to it too!"
"Have you been listening at the door, Edgar?" asked the mistress, in a tone particularly calculated to provoke her husband, implying both carelessness and contempt of his irritation. Heathcliff, who had raised his eyes at the former speech, gave a sneering laugh at the latter; on purpose, it seemed, to draw Mr. Linton's attention to him. He succeeded; but Edgar did not mean to entertain him with any high flights of passion.
"I've been so far forbearing with you, sir," he said quietly; "not that I was ignorant of your miserable, degraded character, but I felt you were only partly responsible for that; and Catherine wishing to keep up your acquaintance, I acquiesced—foolishly. Your presence is a moral poison that would contaminate the most virtuous: for that cause, and to prevent worse consequences, I shall deny you hereafter admission into this house, and give notice now that I require your instant departure. Three minutes" delay will render it involuntary and ignominious.
Heathcliff measured the height and breadth of the speaker with an eye full of derision.
"Cathy, this lamb of yours threatens like a bull!" he said. "It is in danger of splitting its skull against my knuckles. By God! Mr. Linton, I'm mortally sorry that you are not worth knocking down!"
My master glanced towards the passage, and signed me to fetch the men: he had no intention of hazarding a personal encounter. I obeyed the hint; but Mrs. Linton, suspecting something, followed; and when I attempted to call them, she pulled me back, slammed the door to, and locked it.
"Fair means!" she said, in answer to her husband's look of angry surprise. "If you have not courage to attack him, make an apology, or allow yourself to be beaten. It will correct you of feigning more valour than you possess. No, I'll swallow the key before you shall get it! I'm delightfully rewarded for my kindness to each! After constant indulgence of one's weak nature, and the other's bad one, I earn for thanks two samples of blind ingratitude, stupid to absurdity! Edgar, I was defending you and yours; and I wish Heathcliff may flog you sick, for daring to think an evil thought of me!"
It did not need the medium of a flogging to produce that effect on the master. He tried to wrest the key from Catherine's grasp, and for safety she flung it into the hottest part of the fire; whereupon Mr. Edgar was taken with a nervous trembling, and his countenance grew deadly pale. For his life he could not avert that excess of emotion: mingled anguish and humiliation overcame him completely. He leant on the back of a chair, and covered his face.
"Oh, heavens! In old days this would win you knighthood!" exclaimed Mrs. Linton. "We are vanquished! we are vanquished! Heathcliff would as soon lift a finger at you as the king would march his army against a colony of mice. Cheer up! you sha'n't be hurt! Your type is not a lamb, it's a sucking leveret."
"I wish you joy of the milk–blooded coward, Cathy!" said her friend. "I compliment you on your taste. And that is the slavering, shivering thing you preferred to me! I would not strike him with my fist, but I'd kick him with my foot, and experience considerable satisfaction. Is he weeping, or is he going to faint for fear?"
The fellow approached and gave the chair on which Linton rested a push. He'd better have kept his distance: my master quickly sprang erect, and struck him full on the throat a blow that would have levelled a slighter man. It took his breath for a minute; and while he choked, Mr. Linton walked out by the back door into the yard, and from thence to the front entrance.
"There! you've done with coming here," cried Catherine. "Get away, now; he'll return with a brace of pistols and half–a–dozen assistants. If he did overhear us, of course he'd never forgive you. You've played me an ill turn, Heathcliff! But go—make haste! I'd rather see Edgar at bay than you."
"Do you suppose I'm going with that blow burning in my gullet?" he thundered. "By hell, no! I'll crush his ribs in like a rotten hazel–nut before I cross the threshold! If I don't floor him now, I shall murder him some time; so, as you value his existence, let me get at him!"
"He is not coming," I interposed, framing a bit of a lie. "There's the coachman and the two gardeners; you'll surely not wait to be thrust into the road by them! Each has a bludgeon; and master will, very likely, be watching from the parlour–windows to see that they fulfil his orders."
The gardeners and coachman were there: but Linton was with them. They had already entered the court. Heathcliff, on the second thoughts, resolved to avoid a struggle against three underlings: he seized the poker, smashed the lock from the inner door, and made his escape as they tramped in.
Mrs. Linton, who was very much excited, bade me accompany her up–stairs. She did not know my share in contributing to the disturbance, and I was anxious to keep her in ignorance.
"I'm nearly distracted, Nelly!" she exclaimed, throwing herself on the sofa. "A thousand smiths" hammers are beating in my head! Tell Isabella to shun me; this uproar is owing to her; and should she or any one else aggravate my anger at present, I shall get wild. And, Nelly, say to Edgar, if you see him again to–night, that I'm in danger of being seriously ill. I wish it may prove true. He has startled and distressed me shockingly! I want to frighten him. Besides, he might come and begin a string of abuse or complainings; I'm certain I should recriminate, and God knows where we should end! Will you do so, my good Nelly? You are aware that I am no way blamable in this matter. What possessed him to turn listener? Heathcliff's talk was outrageous, after you left us; but I could soon have diverted him from Isabella, and the rest meant nothing. Now all is dashed wrong; by the fool's craving to hear evil of self, that haunts some people like a demon! Had Edgar never gathered our conversation, he would never have been the worse for it. Really, when he opened on me in that unreasonable tone of displeasure after I had scolded Heathcliff till I was hoarse for him, I did not care hardly what they did to each other; especially as I felt that, however the scene closed, we should all be driven asunder for nobody knows how long! Well, if I cannot keep Heathcliff for my friend—if Edgar will be mean and jealous, I'll try to break their hearts by breaking my own. That will be a prompt way of finishing all, when I am pushed to extremity! But it's a deed to be reserved for a forlorn hope; I'd not take Linton by surprise with it. To this point he has been discreet in dreading to provoke me; you must represent the peril of quitting that policy, and remind him of my passionate temper, verging, when kindled, on frenzy. I wish you could dismiss that apathy out of that countenance, and look rather more anxious about me.'
The stolidity with which I received these instructions was, no doubt, rather exasperating: for they were delivered in perfect sincerity; but I believed a person who could plan the turning of her fits of passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence; and I did not wish to "frighten" her husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for the purpose of serving her selfishness. Therefore I said nothing when I met the master coming towards the parlour; but I took the liberty of turning back to listen whether they would resume their quarrel together. He began to speak first.
"Remain where you are, Catherine," he said; without any anger in his voice, but with much sorrowful despondency. "I shall not stay. I am neither come to wrangle nor be reconciled; but I wish just to learn whether, after this evening's events, you intend to continue your intimacy with—"
"Oh, for mercy's sake," interrupted the mistress, stamping her foot, "for mercy's sake, let us hear no more of it now! Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever: your veins are full of ice–water; but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance."
"To get rid of me, answer my question," persevered Mr. Linton. "You must answer it; and that violence does not alarm me. I have found that you can be as stoical as anyone, when you please. Will you give up Heathcliff hereafter, or will you give up me? It is impossible for you to be my friend and his at the same time; and I absolutely require to know which you choose."
"I require to be let alone?" exclaimed Catherine, furiously. "I demand it! Don't you see I can scarcely stand? Edgar, you—you leave me!"
She rang the bell till it broke with a twang; I entered leisurely. It was enough to try the temper of a saint, such senseless, wicked rages! There she lay dashing her head against the arm of the sofa, and grinding her teeth, so that you might fancy she would crash them to splinters! Mr. Linton stood looking at her in sudden compunction and fear. He told me to fetch some water. She had no breath for speaking. I brought a glass full; and as she would not drink, I sprinkled it on her face. In a few seconds she stretched herself out stiff, and turned up her eyes, while her cheeks, at once blanched and livid, assumed the aspect of death. Linton looked terrified.
"There is nothing in the world the matter," I whispered. I did not want him to yield, though I could not help being afraid in my heart.
"She has blood on her lips!" he said, shuddering.
"Never mind!" I answered, tartly. And I told him how she had resolved, previous to his coming, on exhibiting a fit of frenzy. I incautiously gave the account aloud, and she heard me; for she started up—her hair flying over her shoulders, her eyes flashing, the muscles of her neck and arms standing out preternaturally. I made up my mind for broken bones, at least; but she only glared about her for an instant, and then rushed from the room. The master directed me to follow; I did, to her chamber–door: she hindered me from going further by securing it against me.
As she never offered to descend to breakfast next morning, I went to ask whether she would have some carried up. "No!" she replied, peremptorily. The same question was repeated at dinner and tea; and again on the morrow after, and received the same answer. Mr. Linton, on his part, spent his time in the library, and did not inquire concerning his wife's occupations. Isabella and he had had an hour's interview, during which he tried to elicit from her some sentiment of proper horror for Heathcliff's advances: but he could make nothing of her evasive replies, and was obliged to close the examination unsatisfactorily; adding, however, a solemn warning, that if she were so insane as to encourage that worthless suitor, it would dissolve all bonds of relationship between herself and him. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 16 | While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself up among books that he never opened—wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation—and she fasted pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running to cast himself at her feet; I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. I wasted no condolences on Miss, nor any expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady's name, since he might not hear her voice. I determined they should come about as they pleased for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice at length in a faint dawn of its progress: as I thought at first.
Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a speech meant for Edgar's ears; I believed no such thing, so I kept it to myself and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and groaning. "Oh, I will die," she exclaimed, "since no one cares anything about me. I wish I had not taken that." Then a good while after I heard her murmur, "No, I'll not die—he'd be glad—he does not love me at all—he would never miss me!"
"Did you want anything, ma'am?" I inquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange, exaggerated manner.
"What is that apathetic being doing?" she demanded, pushing the thick entangled locks from her wasted face. "Has he fallen into a lethargy, or is he dead?"
"Neither," replied I; "if you mean Mr. Linton. He's tolerably well, I think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought: he is continually among his books, since he has no other society."
I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder.
"Among his books!" she cried, confounded. "And I dying! I on the brink of the grave! My God! does he know how I'm altered?" continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall. "Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet—in play, perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I'll choose between these two: either to starve at once—that would be no punishment unless he had a heart—or to recover, and leave the country. Are you speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly indifferent for my life?"
"Why, ma'am," I answered, "the master has no idea of your being deranged; and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die of hunger."
"You think not? Cannot you tell him I will?" she returned. "Persuade him! speak of your own mind: say you are certain I will!"
"No, you forget, Mrs. Linton," I suggested, "that you have eaten some food with a relish this evening, and to–morrow you will perceive its good effects."
"If I were only sure it would kill him," she interrupted, "I'd kill myself directly! These three awful nights I've never closed my lids—and oh, I've been tormented! I've been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. And they have all turned to enemies in a few hours: they have, I'm positive; the people here. How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces! Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be so dreadful to watch Catherine go. And Edgar standing solemnly by to see it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace to his house, and going back to his books! What in the name of all that feels has he to do with books, when I am dying?"
She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr. Linton's philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth; then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the north–east, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her face, and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly; and brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor's injunction that she should not be crossed. A minute previously she was violent; now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to their different species: her mind had strayed to other associations.
"That's a turkey's," she murmured to herself; "and this is a wild duck's; and this is a pigeon's. Ah, they put pigeons" feathers in the pillows—no wonder I couldn't die! Let me take care to throw it on the floor when I lie down. And here is a moor–cock's; and this—I should know it among a thousand—it's a lapwing's. Bonny bird; wheeling over our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he'd never shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn't. Yes, here are more! Did he shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look.'
"Give over with that baby–work!" I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. "Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is flying about like snow."
I went here and there collecting it.
"I see in you, Nelly," she continued dreamily, "an aged woman: you have grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under Penistone crags, and you are gathering elf–bolts to hurt our heifers; pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That's what you'll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I'm not wandering: you're mistaken, or else I should believe you really were that withered hag, and I should think I was under Penistone Crags; and I'm conscious it's night, and there are two candles on the table making the black press shine like jet."
"The black press? where is that?" I asked. "You are talking in your sleep!"
"It's against the wall, as it always is," she replied. "It does appear odd—I see a face in it!"
"There's no press in the room, and never was," said I, resuming my seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her.
"Don't you see that face?" she inquired, gazing earnestly at the mirror.
And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.
"It's behind there still!" she pursued, anxiously. "And it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the room is haunted! I'm afraid of being alone!"
I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the glass.
"There's nobody here!" I insisted. "It was yourself, Mrs. Linton: you knew it a while since."
"Myself!" she gasped, "and the clock is striking twelve! It's true, then! that's dreadful!"
Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek—the shawl had dropped from the frame.
"Why, what is the matter?" cried I. "Who is coward now? Wake up! That is the glass—the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it, and there am I too by your side."
Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of shame.
"Oh, dear! I thought I was at home," she sighed. "I thought I was lying in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I'm weak, my brain got confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don't say anything; but stay with me. I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me."
"A sound sleep would do you good, ma'am," I answered: "and I hope this suffering will prevent your trying starving again."
"Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!" she went on bitterly, wringing her hands. "And that wind sounding in the firs by the lattice. Do let me feel it—it comes straight down the moor—do let me have one breath!" To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child.
"How long is it since I shut myself in here?" she asked, suddenly reviving.
"It was Monday evening," I replied, "and this is Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, at present."
"What! of the same week?" she exclaimed. "Only that brief time?"
"Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill–temper," observed I.
"Well, it seems a weary number of hours," she muttered doubtfully: "it must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the oak–panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside: it struck the table–top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?"
"Because I won't give you your death of cold," I answered.
"You won't give me a chance of life, you mean," she said, sullenly. "However, I'm not helpless yet; I'll open it myself."
And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife. I entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire. But I soon found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious, I became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings). There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible—still she asserted she caught their shining.
"Look!" she cried eagerly, "that's my room with the candle in it, and the trees swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph's garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn't he? He's waiting till I come home that he may lock the gate. Well, he'll wait a while yet. It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep you. I'll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will!"
She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. "He's considering—he'd rather I'd come to him! Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard. You are slow! Be content, you always followed me!"
Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when, to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door–handle, and Mr. Linton entered. He had only then come from the library; and, in passing through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour.
"Oh, sir!" I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber. "My poor mistress is ill, and she quite masters me: I cannot manage her at all; pray, come and persuade her to go to bed. Forget your anger, for she's hard to guide any way but her own."
"Catherine ill?" he said, hastening to us. "Shut the window, Ellen! Catherine! why—"
He was silent. The haggardness of Mrs. Linton's appearance smote him speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified astonishment.
"She's been fretting here," I continued, "and eating scarcely anything, and never complaining: she would admit none of us till this evening, and so we couldn't inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it ourselves; but it is nothing."
I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned. "It is nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?" he said sternly. "You shall account more clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!" And he took his wife in his arms, and looked at her with anguish.
At first she gave him no glance of recognition: he was invisible to her abstracted gaze. The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned her eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her.
"Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?" she said, with angry animation. "You are one of those things that are ever found when least wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty of lamentations now—I see we shall—but they can't keep me from my narrow home out yonder: my resting–place, where I'm bound before spring is over! There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the chapel–roof, but in the open air, with a head–stone; and you may please yourself whether you go to them or come to me!"
"Catherine, what have you done?" commenced the master. "Am I nothing to you any more? Do you love that wretch Heath—"
"Hush!" cried Mrs. Linton. "Hush, this moment! You mention that name and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window! What you touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hill–top before you lay hands on me again. I don't want you, Edgar: I'm past wanting you. Return to your books. I'm glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone."
"Her mind wanders, sir," I interposed. "She has been talking nonsense the whole evening; but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and she'll rally. Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her."
"I desire no further advice from you," answered Mr. Linton. "You knew your mistress's nature, and you encouraged me to harass her. And not to give me one hint of how she has been these three days! It was heartless! Months of sickness could not cause such a change!"
I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for another's wicked waywardness. "I knew Mrs. Linton's nature to be headstrong and domineering," cried I: "but I didn't know that you wished to foster her fierce temper! I didn't know that, to humour her, I should wink at Mr. Heathcliff. I performed the duty of a faithful servant in telling you, and I have got a faithful servant's wages! Well, it will teach me to be careful next time. Next time you may gather intelligence for yourself!"
"The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen Dean," he replied.
"You'd rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?" said I. "Heathcliff has your permission to come a–courting to Miss, and to drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison the mistress against you?"
Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our conversation.
"Ah! Nelly has played traitor," she exclaimed, passionately. "Nelly is my hidden enemy. You witch! So you do seek elf–bolts to hurt us! Let me go, and I'll make her rue! I'll make her howl a recantation!"
A maniac's fury kindled under her brows; she struggled desperately to disengage herself from Linton's arms. I felt no inclination to tarry the event; and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility, I quitted the chamber.
In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly, evidently by another agent than the wind. Notwithstanding my hurry, I stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world. My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more than vision, Miss Isabella's springer, Fanny, suspended by a handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp. I quickly released the animal, and lifted it into the garden. I had seen it follow its mistress up–stairs when she went to bed; and wondered much how it could have got out there, and what mischievous person had treated it so. While untying the knot round the hook, it seemed to me that I repeatedly caught the beat of horses' feet galloping at some distance; but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I hardly gave the circumstance a thought: though it was a strange sound, in that place, at two o'clock in the morning.
Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a patient in the village as I came up the street; and my account of Catherine Linton's malady induced him to accompany me back immediately. He was a plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of her surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to his directions than she had shown herself before.
"Nelly Dean," said he, "I can't help fancying there's an extra cause for this. What has there been to do at the Grange? We've odd reports up here. A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a trifle; and that sort of people should not either. It's hard work bringing them through fevers, and such things. How did it begin?"
"The master will inform you," I answered; "but you are acquainted with the Earnshaws" violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all. I may say this; it commenced in a quarrel. She was struck during a tempest of passion with a kind of fit. That's her account, at least: for she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up. Afterwards, she refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and remains in a half dream; knowing those about her, but having her mind filled with all sorts of strange ideas and illusions.'
"Mr. Linton will be sorry?" observed Kenneth, interrogatively.
"Sorry? he'll break his heart should anything happen!" I replied. "Don't alarm him more than necessary."
"Well, I told him to beware," said my companion; "and he must bide the consequences of neglecting my warning! Hasn't he been intimate with Mr. Heathcliff lately?"
"Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange," answered I, "though more on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than because the master likes his company. At present he's discharged from the trouble of calling; owing to some presumptuous aspirations after Miss Linton which he manifested. I hardly think he'll be taken in again."
"And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?" was the doctor's next question.
"I'm not in her confidence," returned I, reluctant to continue the subject.
"No, she's a sly one," he remarked, shaking his head. "She keeps her own counsel! But she's a real little fool. I have it from good authority that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and Heathcliff were walking in the plantation at the back of your house above two hours; and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount his horse and away with him! My informant said she could only put him off by pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first meeting after that: when it was to be he didn't hear; but you urge Mr. Linton to look sharp!"
This news filled me with fresh fears; I outstripped Kenneth, and ran most of the way back. The little dog was yelping in the garden yet. I spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have escaped to the road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me. On ascending to Isabella's room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was empty. Had I been a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton's illness might have arrested her rash step. But what could be done now? There was a bare possibility of overtaking them if pursued instantly. I could not pursue them, however; and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the place with confusion; still less unfold the business to my master, absorbed as he was in his present calamity, and having no heart to spare for a second grief! I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue, and suffer matters to take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I went with a badly composed countenance to announce him. Catherine lay in a troubled sleep: her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess of frenzy; he now hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every change of her painfully expressive features.
The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve around her perfect and constant tranquillity. To me, he signified the threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of intellect.
I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton: indeed, we never went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations. Every one was active but Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she slept: her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her sister–in–law. I trembled lest he should send me to call her; but I was spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight. One of the maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to Gimmerton, came panting up–stairs, open–mouthed, and dashed into the chamber, crying: "Oh, dear, dear! What mun we have next? Master, master, our young lady—"
"Hold your noise!" cried, I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner.
"Speak lower, Mary—What is the matter?" said Mr. Linton. "What ails your young lady?"
"She's gone, she's gone! Yon" Heathcliff's run off wi' her!' gasped the girl.
"That is not true!" exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation. "It cannot be: how has the idea entered your head? Ellen Dean, go and seek her. It is incredible: it cannot be."
As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his demand to know her reasons for such an assertion.
"Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here," she stammered, "and he asked whether we weren't in trouble at the Grange. I thought he meant for missis's sickness, so I answered, yes. Then says he, "There's somebody gone after 'em, I guess?" I stared. He saw I knew nought about it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse's shoe fastened at a blacksmith's shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith's lass had got up to spy who they were: she knew them both directly. And she noticed the man—Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob'dy could mistake him, besides—put a sovereign in her father's hand for payment. The lady had a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff held both bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass said nothing to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning."
I ran and peeped, for form's sake, into Isabella's room; confirming, when I returned, the servant's statement. Mr. Linton had resumed his seat by the bed; on my re–entrance, he raised his eyes, read the meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order, or uttering a word.
"Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back," I inquired. "How should we do?"
"She went of her own accord," answered the master; "she had a right to go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me."
And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make single inquiry further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when I knew it. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 17 | For two months the fugitives remained absent; in those two months, Mrs. Linton encountered and conquered the worst shock of what was denominated a brain fever. No mother could have nursed an only child more devotedly than Edgar tended her. Day and night he was watching, and patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict; and, though Kenneth remarked that what he saved from the grave would only recompense his care by forming the source of constant future anxiety—in fact, that his health and strength were being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity—he knew no limits in gratitude and joy when Catherine's life was declared out of danger; and hour after hour he would sit beside her, tracing the gradual return to bodily health, and flattering his too sanguine hopes with the illusion that her mind would settle back to its right balance also, and she would soon be entirely her former self.
The first time she left her chamber was at the commencement of the following March. Mr. Linton had put on her pillow, in the morning, a handful of golden crocuses; her eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught them in waking, and shone delighted as she gathered them eagerly together.
"These are the earliest flowers at the Heights," she exclaimed. "They remind me of soft thaw winds, and warm sunshine, and nearly melted snow. Edgar, is there not a south wind, and is not the snow almost gone?"
"The snow is quite gone down here, darling," replied her husband; "and I only see two white spots on the whole range of moors: the sky is blue, and the larks are singing, and the becks and brooks are all brim full. Catherine, last spring at this time, I was longing to have you under this roof; now, I wish you were a mile or two up those hills: the air blows so sweetly, I feel that it would cure you."
"I shall never be there but once more," said the invalid; "and then you'll leave me, and I shall remain for ever. Next spring you'll long again to have me under this roof, and you'll look back and think you were happy to–day."
Linton lavished on her the kindest caresses, and tried to cheer her by the fondest words; but, vaguely regarding the flowers, she let the tears collect on her lashes and stream down her cheeks unheeding. We knew she was really better, and, therefore, decided that long confinement to a single place produced much of this despondency, and it might be partially removed by a change of scene. The master told me to light a fire in the many–weeks' deserted parlour, and to set an easy–chair in the sunshine by the window; and then he brought her down, and she sat a long while enjoying the genial heat, and, as we expected, revived by the objects round her: which, though familiar, were free from the dreary associations investing her hated sick chamber. By evening she seemed greatly exhausted; yet no arguments could persuade her to return to that apartment, and I had to arrange the parlour sofa for her bed, till another room could be prepared. To obviate the fatigue of mounting and descending the stairs, we fitted up this, where you lie at present—on the same floor with the parlour; and she was soon strong enough to move from one to the other, leaning on Edgar's arm. Ah, I thought myself, she might recover, so waited on as she was. And there was double cause to desire it, for on her existence depended that of another: we cherished the hope that in a little while Mr. Linton's heart would be gladdened, and his lands secured from a stranger's gripe, by the birth of an heir.
I should mention that Isabella sent to her brother, some six weeks from her departure, a short note, announcing her marriage with Heathcliff. It appeared dry and cold; but at the bottom was dotted in with pencil an obscure apology, and an entreaty for kind remembrance and reconciliation, if her proceeding had offended him: asserting that she could not help it then, and being done, she had now no power to repeal it. Linton did not reply to this, I believe; and, in a fortnight more, I got a long letter, which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honeymoon. I'll read it: for I keep it yet. Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 18 | DEAR ELLEN, it begins,—I came last night to Wuthering Heights, and heard, for the first time, that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too distressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you.
Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again—that my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty–four hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him, and Catherine! I can't follow it though—(these words are underlined)—they need not expect me, and they may draw what conclusions they please; taking care, however, to lay nothing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection.
The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask you two questions: the first is,—How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot recognise any sentiment which those around share with me.
The second question I have great interest in; it is this—Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married: that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar.
Now, you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts: they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy, if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an unnatural dream!
The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors; by that, I judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour, to inspect the park, and the gardens, and, probably, the place itself, as well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farm–house, and your old fellow–servant, Joseph, issued out to receive us by the light of a dip candle. He did it with a courtesy that redounded to his credit. His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my face, squint malignantly, project his under–lip, and turn away. Then he took the two horses, and led them into the stables; reappearing for the purpose of locking the outer gate, as if we lived in an ancient castle.
Heathcliff stayed to speak to him, and I entered the kitchen—a dingy, untidy hole; I daresay you would not know it, it is so changed since it was in your charge. By the fire stood a ruffianly child, strong in limb and dirty in garb, with a look of Catherine in his eyes and about his mouth.
"This is Edgar's legal nephew," I reflected—"mine in a manner; I must shake hands, and—yes—I must kiss him. It is right to establish a good understanding at the beginning."
I approached, and, attempting to take his chubby fist, said—"How do you do, my dear?"
He replied in a jargon I did not comprehend.
"Shall you and I be friends, Hareton?" was my next essay at conversation.
An oath, and a threat to set Throttler on me if I did not "frame off" rewarded my perseverance.
"Hey, Throttler, lad!" whispered the little wretch, rousing a half–bred bull–dog from its lair in a corner. "Now, wilt thou be ganging?" he asked authoritatively.
Love for my life urged a compliance; I stepped over the threshold to wait till the others should enter. Mr. Heathcliff was nowhere visible; and Joseph, whom I followed to the stables, and requested to accompany me in, after staring and muttering to himself, screwed up his nose and replied—"Mim! mim! mim! Did iver Christian body hear aught like it? Mincing un" munching! How can I tell whet ye say?'
"I say, I wish you to come with me into the house!" I cried, thinking him deaf, yet highly disgusted at his rudeness.
"None o" me! I getten summut else to do,' he answered, and continued his work; moving his lantern jaws meanwhile, and surveying my dress and countenance (the former a great deal too fine, but the latter, I'm sure, as sad as he could desire) with sovereign contempt.
I walked round the yard, and through a wicket, to another door, at which I took the liberty of knocking, in hopes some more civil servant might show himself. After a short suspense, it was opened by a tall, gaunt man, without neckerchief, and otherwise extremely slovenly; his features were lost in masses of shaggy hair that hung on his shoulders; and his eyes, too, were like a ghostly Catherine's with all their beauty annihilated.
"What's your business here?" he demanded, grimly. "Who are you?"
"My name was Isabella Linton," I replied. "You've seen me before, sir. I'm lately married to Mr. Heathcliff, and he has brought me here—I suppose, by your permission."
"Is he come back, then?" asked the hermit, glaring like a hungry wolf.
"Yes—we came just now," I said; "but he left me by the kitchen door; and when I would have gone in, your little boy played sentinel over the place, and frightened me off by the help of a bull–dog."
"It's well the hellish villain has kept his word!" growled my future host, searching the darkness beyond me in expectation of discovering Heathcliff; and then he indulged in a soliloquy of execrations, and threats of what he would have done had the "fiend" deceived him.
I repented having tried this second entrance, and was almost inclined to slip away before he finished cursing, but ere I could execute that intention, he ordered me in, and shut and re–fastened the door. There was a great fire, and that was all the light in the huge apartment, whose floor had grown a uniform grey; and the once brilliant pewter–dishes, which used to attract my gaze when I was a girl, partook of a similar obscurity, created by tarnish and dust. I inquired whether I might call the maid, and be conducted to a bedroom! Mr. Earnshaw vouchsafed no answer. He walked up and down, with his hands in his pockets, apparently quite forgetting my presence; and his abstraction was evidently so deep, and his whole aspect so misanthropical, that I shrank from disturbing him again.
You'll not be surprised, Ellen, at my feeling particularly cheerless, seated in worse than solitude on that inhospitable hearth, and remembering that four miles distant lay my delightful home, containing the only people I loved on earth; and there might as well be the Atlantic to part us, instead of those four miles: I could not overpass them! I questioned with myself—where must I turn for comfort? and—mind you don't tell Edgar, or Catherine—above every sorrow beside, this rose pre–eminent: despair at finding nobody who could or would be my ally against Heathcliff! I had sought shelter at Wuthering Heights, almost gladly, because I was secured by that arrangement from living alone with him; but he knew the people we were coming amongst, and he did not fear their intermeddling.
I sat and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals. I listened to detect a woman's voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping. I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly–awakened surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed—"I'm tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the maid–servant? Direct me to her, as she won't come to me!"
"We have none," he answered; "you must wait on yourself!"
"Where must I sleep, then?" I sobbed; I was beyond regarding self–respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.
"Joseph will show you Heathcliff's chamber," said he; "open that door—he's in there."
I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone—"Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your bolt—don't omit it!"
"Well!" I said. "But why, Mr. Earnshaw?" I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff.
"Look here!" he replied, pulling from his waistcoat a curiously–constructed pistol, having a double–edged spring knife attached to the barrel. "That's a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he's done for; I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him. You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!"
I surveyed the weapon inquisitively. A hideous notion struck me: how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument! I took it from his hand, and touched the blade. He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second: it was not horror, it was covetousness. He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife, and returned it to its concealment.
"I don't care if you tell him," said he. "Put him on his guard, and watch for him. You know the terms we are on, I see: his danger does not shock you."
"What has Heathcliff done to you?" I asked. "In what has he wronged you, to warrant this appalling hatred? Wouldn't it be wiser to bid him quit the house?"
"No!" thundered Earnshaw; "should he offer to leave me, he's a dead man: persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess! Am I to lose all, without a chance of retrieval? Is Hareton to be a beggar? Oh, damnation! I will have it back; and I'll have his gold too; and then his blood; and hell shall have his soul! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before!"
You've acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master's habits. He is clearly on the verge of madness: he was so last night at least. I shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant's ill–bred moroseness as comparatively agreeable. He now recommenced his moody walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen. Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it; and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of the pan began to boil, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, "I'll make the porridge!" I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding–habit. "Mr. Earnshaw," I continued, "directs me to wait on myself: I will. I'm not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve."
"Gooid Lord!" he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. "If there's to be fresh ortherings—just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev" a mistress set o'er my heead, it's like time to be flitting. I niver did think to see t' day that I mud lave th' owld place—but I doubt it's nigh at hand!'
This lamentation drew no notice from me: I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun; but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall past happiness and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation.
"Thear!" he ejaculated. "Hareton, thou willn't sup thy porridge to–neeght; they'll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I'd fling in bowl un" all, if I wer ye! There, pale t' guilp off, un' then ye'll hae done wi' "t. Bang, bang. It's a mercy t" bothom isn't deaved out!'
It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and commenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that "the barn was every bit as good" as I, "and every bit as wollsome," and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered up at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug.
"I shall have my supper in another room," I said. "Have you no place you call a parlour?"
"Parlour!" he echoed, sneeringly, "parlour! Nay, we've noa parlours. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there's maister's; un" if yah dunnut loike maister, there's us.'
"Then I shall go up–stairs," I answered; "show me a chamber."
I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we mounted to the garrets; he opened a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed.
"Here's a rahm," he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges. "It's weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in. There's a pack o" corn i' t' corner, thear, meeterly clane; if ye're feared o' muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o' t' top on't.'
The "rahm" was a kind of lumber–hole smelling strong of malt and grain; various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle.
"Why, man," I exclaimed, facing him angrily, "this is not a place to sleep in. I wish to see my bed–room."
"Bed–rume!" he repeated, in a tone of mockery. "Yah's see all t"bed–rumes thear is—yon's mine.'
He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large, low, curtainless bed, with an indigo–coloured quilt, at one end.
"What do I want with yours?" I retorted. "I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?"
"Oh! it's Maister Hathecliff's ye're wanting?" cried he, as if making a new discovery. "Couldn't ye ha" said soa, at onst? un' then, I mud ha' telled ye, baht all this wark, that that's just one ye cannut see—he allas keeps it locked, un' nob'dy iver mells on't but hisseln.'
"You've a nice house, Joseph," I could not refrain from observing, "and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purpose—there are other rooms. For heaven's sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!"
He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting, before an apartment which, from that halt and the superior quality of its furniture, I conjectured to be the best one. There was a carpet—a good one, but the pattern was obliterated by dust; a fireplace hung with cut–paper, dropping to pieces; a handsome oak–bedstead with ample crimson curtains of rather expensive material and modern make; but they had evidently experienced rough usage: the vallances hung in festoons, wrenched from their rings, and the iron rod supporting them was bent in an arc on one side, causing the drapery to trail upon the floor. The chairs were also damaged, many of them severely; and deep indentations deformed the panels of the walls. I was endeavouring to gather resolution for entering and taking possession, when my fool of a guide announced,—"This here is t" maister's.' My supper by this time was cold, my appetite gone, and my patience exhausted. I insisted on being provided instantly with a place of refuge, and means of repose.
"Whear the divil?" began the religious elder. "The Lord bless us! The Lord forgie us! Whear the hell wold ye gang? ye marred, wearisome nowt! Ye've seen all but Hareton's bit of a cham'er. There's not another hoile to lig down in i" th' hahse!'
I was so vexed, I flung my tray and its contents on the ground; and then seated myself at the stairs'-head, hid my face in my hands, and cried.
"Ech! ech!" exclaimed Joseph. "Weel done, Miss Cathy! weel done, Miss Cathy! Howsiver, t" maister sall just tum'le o'er them brooken pots; un' then we's hear summut; we's hear how it's to be. Gooid–for–naught madling! ye desarve pining fro' this to Churstmas, flinging t' precious gifts o'God under fooit i' yer flaysome rages! But I'm mista'en if ye shew yer sperrit lang. Will Hathecliff bide sich bonny ways, think ye? I nobbut wish he may catch ye i' that plisky. I nobbut wish he may.'
And so he went on scolding to his den beneath, taking the candle with him; and I remained in the dark. The period of reflection succeeding this silly action compelled me to admit the necessity of smothering my pride and choking my wrath, and bestirring myself to remove its effects. An unexpected aid presently appeared in the shape of Throttler, whom I now recognised as a son of our old Skulker: it had spent its whelphood at the Grange, and was given by my father to Mr. Hindley. I fancy it knew me: it pushed its nose against mine by way of salute, and then hastened to devour the porridge; while I groped from step to step, collecting the shattered earthenware, and drying the spatters of milk from the banister with my pocket–handkerchief. Our labours were scarcely over when I heard Earnshaw's tread in the passage; my assistant tucked in his tail, and pressed to the wall; I stole into the nearest doorway. The dog's endeavour to avoid him was unsuccessful; as I guessed by a scutter down–stairs, and a prolonged, piteous yelping. I had better luck: he passed on, entered his chamber, and shut the door. Directly after Joseph came up with Hareton, to put him to bed. I had found shelter in Hareton's room, and the old man, on seeing me, said,—"They's rahm for boath ye un" yer pride, now, I sud think i' the hahse. It's empty; ye may hev' it all to yerseln, un' Him as allus maks a third, i' sich ill company!'
Gladly did I take advantage of this intimation; and the minute I flung myself into a chair, by the fire, I nodded, and slept. My slumber was deep and sweet, though over far too soon. Mr. Heathcliff awoke me; he had just come in, and demanded, in his loving manner, what I was doing there? I told him the cause of my staying up so late—that he had the key of our room in his pocket. The adjective our gave mortal offence. He swore it was not, nor ever should be, mine; and he'd—but I'll not repeat his language, nor describe his habitual conduct: he is ingenious and unresting in seeking to gain my abhorrence! I sometimes wonder at him with an intensity that deadens my fear: yet, I assure you, a tiger or a venomous serpent could not rouse terror in me equal to that which he wakens. He told me of Catherine's illness, and accused my brother of causing it promising that I should be Edgar's proxy in suffering, till he could get hold of him.
I do hate him—I am wretched—I have been a fool! Beware of uttering one breath of this to any one at the Grange. I shall expect you every day—don't disappoint me!—ISABELLA. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 19 | As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton's situation, and her ardent desire to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me.
"Forgiveness!" said Linton. "I have nothing to forgive her, Ellen. You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I'm sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never think she'll be happy. It is out of the question my going to see her, however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country."
"And you won't write her a little note, sir?" I asked, imploringly.
"No," he answered. "It is needless. My communication with Heathcliff's family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not exist!"
Mr. Edgar's coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady's place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocket–book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better. So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn't understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and said—"If you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her. You needn't make a secret of it: we have no secrets between us."
"Oh, I have nothing," I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once. "My master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his love, ma'am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up."
Mrs. Heathcliff's lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by cross–examination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton's example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil.
"Mrs. Linton is now just recovering," I said; "she'll never be like she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her, you'll shun crossing her way again: nay, you'll move out of this country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I'll inform you Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as that young lady is different from me. Her appearance is changed greatly, her character much more so; and the person who is compelled, of necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty!"
"That is quite possible," remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm: "quite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his duty and humanity? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you'll get me an interview with her: consent, or refuse, I will see her! What do you say?"
"I say, Mr. Heathcliff," I replied, "you must not: you never shall, through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether."
"With your aid that may be avoided," he continued; "and should there be danger of such an event—should he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existence—why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then—if you don't believe me, you don't know me—till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!"
"And yet," I interrupted, "you have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress."
"You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?" he said. "Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future—death and hell: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse–trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?"
"Catherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be," cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. "No one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won't hear my brother depreciated in silence!"
"Your brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn't he?" observed Heathcliff, scornfully. "He turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity."
"He is not aware of what I suffer," she replied. "I didn't tell him that."
"You have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?"
"To say that I was married, I did write—you saw the note."
"And nothing since?"
"No."
"My young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition," I remarked. "Somebody's love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn't say."
"I should guess it was her own," said Heathcliff. "She degenerates into a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You'd hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home. However, she'll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad."
"Well, sir," returned I, "I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn't have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you."
"She abandoned them under a delusion," he answered; "picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. Can I trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you alone for half a day, won't you come sighing and wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don't care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself. But no brutality disgusted her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury! Now, was it not the depth of absurdity—of genuine idiotcy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean–minded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I've sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back! But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what's more, she'd thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!"
"Mr. Heathcliff," said I, "this is the talk of a madman; your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?"
"Take care, Ellen!" answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner's endeavours to make himself detested. "Don't put faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being! I've been told I might leave him before; and I've made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Ellen, promise you'll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation: he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him; and he sha'n't obtain it—I'll die first! I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me! The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!"
"There—that will do for the present!" said Heathcliff. "If you are called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly! And take a good look at that countenance: she's near the point which would suit me. No; you're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be. Go up–stairs; I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private. That's not the way: up–stairs, I tell you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child!"
He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering—"I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain."
"Do you understand what the word pity means?" I said, hastening to resume my bonnet. "Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?"
"Put that down!" he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart. "You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm: I don't desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there to–night; and every night I'll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily. I'd warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering mischief."
I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer's house: and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton's tranquillity for his satisfaction. "The commonest occurrence startles her painfully," I said. "She's all nerves, and she couldn't bear the surprise, I'm positive. Don't persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he'll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!"
"In that case I'll take measures to secure you, woman!" exclaimed Heathcliff; "you shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to–morrow morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me; and as to surprising her, I don't desire it: you must prepare her—ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxious–looking: is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty and humanity! From pity and charity! He might as well plant an oak in a flower–pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares? Let us settle it at once: will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footman? Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request? Decide! because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill–nature!"
Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I promised to let him have intelligence of Linton's next absence from home, when he might come, and get in as he was able: I wouldn't be there, and my fellow–servants should be equally out of the way. Was it right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance; and I thought, too, it might create a favourable crisis in Catherine's mental illness: and then I remembered Mr. Edgar's stern rebuke of my carrying tales; and I tried to smooth away all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last. Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither; and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton's hand.
But here is Kenneth; I'll go down, and tell him how much better you are. My history is dree, as we say, and will serve to while away another morning.
Dree, and dreary! I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor: and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse me. But never mind! I'll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean's bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff's brilliant eyes. I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 20 | Another week over—and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I have now heard all my neighbour's history, at different sittings, as the housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations. I'll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her style.
In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place; and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my pocket, and didn't want to be threatened or teased any more. I had made up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not guess how its receipt would affect Catherine. The consequence was, that it did not reach her before the lapse of three days. The fourth was Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to church. There was a manservant left to keep the house with me, and we generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of service; but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be paid for on the morrow. He departed, and I went up–stairs.
Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual. Her thick, long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when she was calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change. The flash of her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her: they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond—you would have said out of this world. Then, the paleness of her face—its haggard aspect having vanished as she recovered flesh—and the peculiar expression arising from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their causes, added to the touching interest which she awakened; and—invariably to me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should think—refuted more tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as one doomed to decay.
A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible wind fluttered its leaves at intervals. I believe Linton had laid it there: for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her amusement. She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods endured his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and then suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the saddest of smiles and kisses. At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and then he took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no good.
Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great thaw or a season of steady rain. And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was thinking as she listened: that is, if she thought or listened at all; but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed no recognition of material things either by ear or eye.
"There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton," I said, gently inserting it in one hand that rested on her knee. "You must read it immediately, because it wants an answer. Shall I break the seal?"
"Yes," she answered, without altering the direction of her eyes. I opened it—it was very short. "Now," I continued, "read it." She drew away her hand, and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it should please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed that at last I resumed—"Must I read it, ma'am? It is from Mr. Heathcliff."
There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it; and when she came to the signature she sighed: yet still I found she had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply, she merely pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and questioning eagerness.
"Well, he wishes to see you," said I, guessing her need of an interpreter. "He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know what answer I shall bring."
As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back, announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely he supposed that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to trust to his own audacity. With straining eagerness Catherine gazed towards the entrance of her chamber. He did not hit the right room directly: she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her grasped in his arms.
He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I daresay: but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her face! The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there—she was fated, sure to die.
"Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?" was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt.
"What now?" said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. "You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me—and thriven on it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?"
Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.
"I wish I could hold you," she continued, bitterly, "till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, "That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I are going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!" Will you say so, Heathcliff?"
"Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself," cried he, wrenching his head free, and grinding his teeth.
The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.
"Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued, savagely, "to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and, Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?"
"I shall not be at peace," moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more kindly—
"I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember than my harsh words! Won't you come here again? Do!"
Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent round to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards us. Mrs. Linton's glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she resumed; addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment:—
"Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave. That is how I'm loved! Well, never mind. That is not my Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he's in my soul. And," added she musingly, "the thing that irks me most is this shattered prison, after all. I'm tired of being enclosed here. I'm wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there: not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it. Nelly, you think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and strength: you are sorry for me—very soon that will be altered. I shall be sorry for you. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I wonder he won't be near me!" She went on to herself. "I thought he wished it. Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now. Do come to me, Heathcliff."
In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species: it appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to him; so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity.
A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little presently: she put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her; while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly—
"You teach me now how cruel you've been—cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you—they'll damn you. You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?"
"Let me alone. Let me alone," sobbed Catherine. "If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won't upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!"
"It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands," he answered. "Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?"
They were silent–their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.
I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile; for the afternoon wore fast away, the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch.
"Service is over," I announced. "My master will be here in half an hour."
Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never moved.
Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer.
"Now he is here," I exclaimed. "For heaven's sake, hurry down! You'll not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick; and stay among the trees till he is fairly in."
"I must go, Cathy," said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from his companion's arms. "But if I live, I'll see you again before you are asleep. I won't stray five yards from your window."
"You must not go!" she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength allowed. "You shall not, I tell you."
"For one hour," he pleaded earnestly.
"Not for one minute," she replied.
"I must—Linton will be up immediately," persisted the alarmed intruder.
He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act—she clung fast, gasping: there was mad resolution in her face.
"No!" she shrieked. "Oh, don't, don't go. It is the last time! Edgar will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!"
"Damn the fool! There he is," cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his seat. "Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I'll stay. If he shot me so, I'd expire with a blessing on my lips."
And there they were fast again. I heard my master mounting the stairs—the cold sweat ran from my forehead: I was horrified.
"Are you going to listen to her ravings?" I said, passionately. "She does not know what she says. Will you ruin her, because she has not wit to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done for—master, mistress, and servant."
I wrung my hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at the noise. In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to observe that Catherine's arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung down.
"She's fainted, or dead," I thought: "so much the better. Far better that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery–maker to all about her."
Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless–looking form in his arms.
"Look there!" he said. "Unless you be a fiend, help her first—then you shall speak to me!"
He walked into the parlour, and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me, and with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her hated friend. I did not. I went, at the earliest opportunity, and besought him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night.
"I shall not refuse to go out of doors," he answered; "but I shall stay in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to–morrow. I shall be under those larch–trees. Mind! or I pay another visit, whether Linton be in or not."
He sent a rapid glance through the half–open door of the chamber, and, ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the house of his luckless presence. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 21 | About twelve o'clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven–months' child; and two hours after the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar. The latter's distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on; its after–effects showed how deep the sorrow sunk. A great addition, in my eyes, was his being left without an heir. I bemoaned that, as I gazed on the feeble orphan; and I mentally abused old Linton for (what was only natural partiality) the securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son's. An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared a morsel, during those first hours of existence. We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be.
Next morning—bright and cheerful out of doors—stole softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him, and almost as fixed: but his was the hush of exhausted anguish, and hers of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: "Incomparably beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is at home with God!"
I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me, but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death, should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter—the Eternity they have entered—where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led, whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant.
Do you believe such people are happy in the other world, sir? I'd give a great deal to know.
I declined answering Mrs. Dean's question, which struck me as something heterodox. She proceeded:
Retracing the course of Catherine Linton, I fear we have no right to think she is; but we'll leave her with her Maker.
The master looked asleep, and I ventured soon after sunrise to quit the room and steal out to the pure refreshing air. The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch; in reality, my chief motive was seeing Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing of the stir at the Grange; unless, perhaps, he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton. If he had come nearer, he would probably be aware, from the lights flitting to and fro, and the opening and shutting of the outer doors, that all was not right within. I wished, yet feared, to find him. I felt the terrible news must be told, and I longed to get it over; but how to do it I did not know. He was there—at least, a few yards further in the park; leant against an old ash–tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with the dew that had gathered on the budded branches, and fell pattering round him. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of ousels passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber. They flew off at my approach, and he raised his eyes and spoke:—"She's dead!" he said; "I've not waited for you to learn that. Put your handkerchief away—don't snivel before me. Damn you all! she wants none of your tears!"
I was weeping as much for him as her: we do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others. When I first looked into his face, I perceived that he had got intelligence of the catastrophe; and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled and he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground.
"Yes, she's dead!" I answered, checking my sobs and drying my cheeks. "Gone to heaven, I hope; where we may, every one, join her, if we take due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good!"
"Did she take due warning, then?" asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer. "Did she die like a saint? Come, give me a true history of the event. How did—?"
He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching, ferocious stare. "How did she die?" he resumed, at last—fain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger–ends.
"Poor wretch!" I thought; "you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men! Why should you be anxious to conceal them? Your pride cannot blind God! You tempt him to wring them, till he forces a cry of humiliation."
"Quietly as a lamb!" I answered, aloud. "She drew a sigh, and stretched herself, like a child reviving, and sinking again to sleep; and five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!"
"And—did she ever mention me?" he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded the answer to his question would introduce details that he could not bear to hear.
"Her senses never returned: she recognised nobody from the time you left her," I said. "She lies with a sweet smile on her face; and her latest ideas wandered back to pleasant early days. Her life closed in a gentle dream—may she wake as kindly in the other world!"
"May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
He dashed his head against the knotted trunk; and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears. I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night. It hardly moved my compassion—it appalled me: still, I felt reluctant to quit him so. But the moment he recollected himself enough to notice me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console!
Mrs. Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease; and till then her coffin remained uncovered, and strewn with flowers and scented leaves, in the great drawing–room. Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and—a circumstance concealed from all but me—Heathcliff spent his nights, at least, outside, equally a stranger to repose. I held no communication with him: still, I was conscious of his design to enter, if he could; and on the Tuesday, a little after dark, when my master, from sheer fatigue, had been compelled to retire a couple of hours, I went and opened one of the windows; moved by his perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu. He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity, cautiously and briefly; too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed, I shouldn't have discovered that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse's face, and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread; which, on examination, I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung round Catherine's neck. Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together.
Mr. Earnshaw was, of course, invited to attend the remains of his sister to the grave; he sent no excuse, but he never came; so that, besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants. Isabella was not asked.
The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside. It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk–yard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry–plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat–mould almost buries it. Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the graves. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 22 | That Friday made the last of our fine days for a month. In the evening the weather broke: the wind shifted from south to north–east, and brought rain first, and then sleet and snow. On the morrow one could hardly imagine that there had been three weeks of summer: the primroses and crocuses were hidden under wintry drifts; the larks were silent, the young leaves of the early trees smitten and blackened. And dreary, and chill, and dismal, that morrow did creep over! My master kept his room; I took possession of the lonely parlour, converting it into a nursery: and there I was, sitting with the moaning doll of a child laid on my knee; rocking it to and fro, and watching, meanwhile, the still driving flakes build up the uncurtained window, when the door opened, and some person entered, out of breath and laughing! My anger was greater than my astonishment for a minute. I supposed it one of the maids, and I cried—"Have done! How dare you show your giddiness here; What would Mr. Linton say if he heard you?"
"Excuse me!" answered a familiar voice; "but I know Edgar is in bed, and I cannot stop myself."
With that the speaker came forward to the fire, panting and holding her hand to her side.
"I have run the whole way from Wuthering Heights!" she continued, after a pause; "except where I've flown. I couldn't count the number of falls I've had. Oh, I'm aching all over! Don't be alarmed! There shall be an explanation as soon as I can give it; only just have the goodness to step out and order the carriage to take me on to Gimmerton, and tell a servant to seek up a few clothes in my wardrobe."
The intruder was Mrs. Heathcliff. She certainly seemed in no laughing predicament: her hair streamed on her shoulders, dripping with snow and water; she was dressed in the girlish dress she commonly wore, befitting her age more than her position: a low frock with short sleeves, and nothing on either head or neck. The frock was of light silk, and clung to her with wet, and her feet were protected merely by thin slippers; add to this a deep cut under one ear, which only the cold prevented from bleeding profusely, a white face scratched and bruised, and a frame hardly able to support itself through fatigue; and you may fancy my first fright was not much allayed when I had had leisure to examine her.
"My dear young lady," I exclaimed, "I'll stir nowhere, and hear nothing, till you have removed every article of your clothes, and put on dry things; and certainly you shall not go to Gimmerton to–night, so it is needless to order the carriage."
"Certainly I shall," she said; "walking or riding: yet I've no objection to dress myself decently. And—ah, see how it flows down my neck now! The fire does make it smart."
She insisted on my fulfilling her directions, before she would let me touch her; and not till after the coachman had been instructed to get ready, and a maid set to pack up some necessary attire, did I obtain her consent for binding the wound and helping to change her garments.
"Now, Ellen," she said, when my task was finished and she was seated in an easy–chair on the hearth, with a cup of tea before her, "you sit down opposite me, and put poor Catherine's baby away: I don't like to see it! You mustn't think I care little for Catherine, because I behaved so foolishly on entering: I've cried, too, bitterly—yes, more than any one else has reason to cry. We parted unreconciled, you remember, and I sha'n't forgive myself. But, for all that, I was not going to sympathise with him—the brute beast! Oh, give me the poker! This is the last thing of his I have about me:" she slipped the gold ring from her third finger, and threw it on the floor. "I'll smash it!" she continued, striking it with childish spite, "and then I'll burn it!" and she took and dropped the misused article among the coals. "There! he shall buy another, if he gets me back again. He'd be capable of coming to seek me, to tease Edgar. I dare not stay, lest that notion should possess his wicked head! And besides, Edgar has not been kind, has he? And I won't come suing for his assistance; nor will I bring him into more trouble. Necessity compelled me to seek shelter here; though, if I had not learned he was out of the way, I'd have halted at the kitchen, washed my face, warmed myself, got you to bring what I wanted, and departed again to anywhere out of the reach of my accursed—of that incarnate goblin! Ah, he was in such a fury! If he had caught me! It's a pity Earnshaw is not his match in strength: I wouldn't have run till I'd seen him all but demolished, had Hindley been able to do it!"
"Well, don't talk so fast, Miss!" I interrupted; "you'll disorder the handkerchief I have tied round your face, and make the cut bleed again. Drink your tea, and take breath, and give over laughing: laughter is sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition!"
"An undeniable truth," she replied. "Listen to that child! It maintains a constant wail—send it out of my hearing for an hour; I sha'n't stay any longer."
I rang the bell, and committed it to a servant's care; and then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining with us.
"I ought, and I wished to remain," answered she, "to cheer Edgar and take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my right home. But I tell you he wouldn't let me! Do you think he could bear to see me grow fat and merry—could bear to think that we were tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our comfort? Now, I have the satisfaction of being sure that he detests me, to the point of its annoying him seriously to have me within ear–shot or eyesight: I notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred; partly arising from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for him, and partly from original aversion. It is strong enough to make me feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England, supposing I contrived a clear escape; and therefore I must get quite away. I've recovered from my first desire to be killed by him: I'd rather he'd kill himself! He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I'm at my ease. I can recollect yet how I loved him; and can dimly imagine that I could still be loving him, if—no, no! Even if he had doted on me, the devilish nature would have revealed its existence somehow. Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well. Monster! would that he could be blotted out of creation, and out of my memory!"
"Hush, hush! He's a human being," I said. "Be more charitable: there are worse men than he is yet!"
"He's not a human being," she retorted; "and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him: and I would not, though he groaned from this to his dying day, and wept tears of blood for Catherine! No, indeed, indeed, I wouldn't!" And here Isabella began to cry; but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she recommenced. "You asked, what has driven me to flight at last? I was compelled to attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a pitch above his malignity. Pulling out the nerves with red hot pincers requires more coolness than knocking on the head. He was worked up to forget the fiendish prudence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous violence. I experienced pleasure in being able to exasperate him: the sense of pleasure woke my instinct of self–preservation, so I fairly broke free; and if ever I come into his hands again he is welcome to a signal revenge."
"Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself sober for the purpose—tolerably sober: not going to bed mad at six o'clock and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently, he rose, in suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance; and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by tumblerfuls."
"Heathcliff—I shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house from last Sunday till to–day. Whether the angels have fed him, or his kin beneath, I cannot tell; but he has not eaten a meal with us for nearly a week. He has just come home at dawn, and gone up–stairs to his chamber; looking himself in—as if anybody dreamt of coveting his company! There he has continued, praying like a Methodist: only the deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed, was curiously confounded with his own black father! After concluding these precious orisons—and they lasted generally till he grew hoarse and his voice was strangled in his throat—he would be off again; always straight down to the Grange! I wonder Edgar did not send for a constable, and give him into custody! For me, grieved as I was about Catherine, it was impossible to avoid regarding this season of deliverance from degrading oppression as a holiday."
"I recovered spirits sufficient to bear Joseph's eternal lectures without weeping, and to move up and down the house less with the foot of a frightened thief than formerly. You wouldn't think that I should cry at anything Joseph could say; but he and Hareton are detestable companions. I'd rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than with 't' little maister" and his staunch supporter, that odious old man! When Heathcliff is in, I'm often obliged to seek the kitchen and their society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers; when he is not, as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one corner of the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy himself; and he does not interfere with my arrangements. He is quieter now than he used to be, if no one provokes him: more sullen and depressed, and less furious. Joseph affirms he's sure he's an altered man: that the Lord has touched his heart, and he is saved "so as by fire." I'm puzzled to detect signs of the favourable change: but it is not my business.
"Yester–evening I sat in my nook reading some old books till late on towards twelve. It seemed so dismal to go up–stairs, with the wild snow blowing outside, and my thoughts continually reverting to the kirk–yard and the new–made grave! I dared hardly lift my eyes from the page before me, that melancholy scene so instantly usurped its place. Hindley sat opposite, his head leant on his hand; perhaps meditating on the same subject. He had ceased drinking at a point below irrationality, and had neither stirred nor spoken during two or three hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed. It was very, very sad: and while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy had vanished from the world, never to be restored."
"The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen latch: Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual; owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm. That entrance was fastened, and we heard him coming round to get in by the other. I rose with an irrepressible expression of what I felt on my lips, which induced my companion, who had been staring towards the door, to turn and look at me."
"I'll keep him out five minutes," he exclaimed. "You won't object?"
"No, you may keep him out the whole night for me," I answered. "Do! put the key in the look, and draw the bolts."
"Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front; he then came and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning over it, and searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that gleamed from his: as he both looked and felt like an assassin, he couldn't exactly find that; but he discovered enough to encourage him to speak."
"You, and I," he said, "have each a great debt to settle with the man out yonder! If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to discharge it. Are you as soft as your brother? Are you willing to endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?"
"I'm weary of enduring now," I replied; "and I'd be glad of a retaliation that wouldn't recoil on myself; but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies."
"Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!" cried Hindley. "Mrs. Heathcliff, I'll ask you to do nothing; but sit still and be dumb. Tell me now, can you? I'm sure you would have as much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend's existence; he'll be your death unless you overreach him; and he'll be my ruin. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he were master here already! Promise to hold your tongue, and before that clock strikes—it wants three minutes of one—you're a free woman!"
"He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from his breast, and would have turned down the candle. I snatched it away, however, and seized his arm."
"I'll not hold my tongue!" I said; "you mustn't touch him. Let the door remain shut, and be quiet!"
"No! I've formed my resolution, and by God I'll execute it!" cried the desperate being. "I'll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and Hareton justice! And you needn't trouble your head to screen me; Catherine is gone. Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though I cut my throat this minute—and it's time to make an end!"
"I might as well have struggled with a bear, or reasoned with a lunatic. The only resource left me was to run to a lattice and warn his intended victim of the fate which awaited him."
"You'd better seek shelter somewhere else to–night!" I exclaimed, in rather a triumphant tone. "Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you persist in endeavouring to enter."
"You'd better open the door, you—" he answered, addressing me by some elegant term that I don't care to repeat."
"I shall not meddle in the matter," I retorted again. "Come in and get shot, if you please. I've done my duty."
"With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire; having too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any anxiety for the danger that menaced him. Earnshaw swore passionately at me: affirming that I loved the villain yet; and calling me all sorts of names for the base spirit I evinced. And I, in my secret heart (and conscience never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be for him should Heathcliff put him out of misery; and what a blessing for me should he send Heathcliff to his right abode! As I sat nursing these reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked blightingly through. The stanchions stood too close to suffer his shoulders to follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security. His hair and clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth, revealed by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark."
"Isabella, let me in, or I'll make you repent!" he "girned," as Joseph calls it."
"I cannot commit murder," I replied. "Mr. Hindley stands sentinel with a knife and loaded pistol."
"Let me in by the kitchen door," he said."
"Hindley will be there before me," I answered: "and that's a poor love of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow! We were left at peace in our beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of winter returns, you must run for shelter! Heathcliff, if I were you, I'd go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The world is surely not worth living in now, is it? You had distinctly impressed on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life: I can't imagine how you think of surviving her loss."
"He's there, is he?" exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap. "If I can get my arm out I can hit him!"
"I'm afraid, Ellen, you'll set me down as really wicked; but you don't know all, so don't judge. I wouldn't have aided or abetted an attempt on even his life for anything. Wish that he were dead, I must; and therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for the consequences of my taunting speech, when he flung himself on Earnshaw's weapon and wrenched it from his grasp."
"The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into its owner's wrist. Heathcliff pulled it away by main force, slitting up the flesh as it passed on, and thrust it dripping into his pocket. He then took a stone, struck down the division between two windows, and sprang in. His adversary had fallen senseless with excessive pain and the flow of blood, that gushed from an artery or a large vein. The ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags, holding me with one hand, meantime, to prevent me summoning Joseph. He exerted preterhuman self–denial in abstaining from finishing him completely; but getting out of breath, he finally desisted, and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle. There he tore off the sleeve of Earnshaw's coat, and bound up the wound with brutal roughness; spitting and cursing during the operation as energetically as he had kicked before. Being at liberty, I lost no time in seeking the old servant; who, having gathered by degrees the purport of my hasty tale, hurried below, gasping, as he descended the steps two at once."
"What is ther to do, now? what is ther to do, now?"
"There's this to do," thundered Heathcliff, "that your master's mad; and should he last another month, I'll have him to an asylum. And how the devil did you come to fasten me out, you toothless hound? Don't stand muttering and mumbling there. Come, I'm not going to nurse him. Wash that stuff away; and mind the sparks of your candle—it is more than half brandy!"
"And so ye've been murthering on him?" exclaimed Joseph, lifting his hands and eyes in horror. "If iver I seed a seeght loike this! May the Lord—"
"Heathcliff gave him a push on to his knees in the middle of the blood, and flung a towel to him; but instead of proceeding to dry it up, he joined his hands and began a prayer, which excited my laughter from its odd phraseology. I was in the condition of mind to be shocked at nothing: in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors show themselves at the foot of the gallows."
"Oh, I forgot you," said the tyrant. "You shall do that. Down with you. And you conspire with him against me, do you, viper? There, that is work fit for you!"
"He shook me till my teeth rattled, and pitched me beside Joseph, who steadily concluded his supplications, and then rose, vowing he would set off for the Grange directly. Mr. Linton was a magistrate, and though he had fifty wives dead, he should inquire into this. He was so obstinate in his resolution, that Heathcliff deemed it expedient to compel from my lips a recapitulation of what had taken place; standing over me, heaving with malevolence, as I reluctantly delivered the account in answer to his questions. It required a great deal of labour to satisfy the old man that Heathcliff was not the aggressor; especially with my hardly–wrung replies. However, Mr. Earnshaw soon convinced him that he was alive still; Joseph hastened to administer a dose of spirits, and by their succour his master presently regained motion and consciousness. Heathcliff, aware that his opponent was ignorant of the treatment received while insensible, called him deliriously intoxicated; and said he should not notice his atrocious conduct further, but advised him to get to bed. To my joy, he left us, after giving this judicious counsel, and Hindley stretched himself on the hearthstone. I departed to my own room, marvelling that I had escaped so easily."
"This morning, when I came down, about half an hour before noon, Mr. Earnshaw was sitting by the fire, deadly sick; his evil genius, almost as gaunt and ghastly, leant against the chimney. Neither appeared inclined to dine, and, having waited till all was cold on the table, I commenced alone. Nothing hindered me from eating heartily, and I experienced a certain sense of satisfaction and superiority, as, at intervals, I cast a look towards my silent companions, and felt the comfort of a quiet conscience within me. After I had done, I ventured on the unusual liberty of drawing near the fire, going round Earnshaw's seat, and kneeling in the corner beside him."
"Heathcliff did not glance my way, and I gazed up, and contemplated his features almost as confidently as if they had been turned to stone. His forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud; his basilisk eyes were nearly quenched by sleeplessness, and weeping, perhaps, for the lashes were wet then: his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief. In his case, I was gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't miss this chance of sticking in a dart: his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong."
"Fie, fie, Miss!" I interrupted. "One might suppose you had never opened a Bible in your life. If God afflict your enemies, surely that ought to suffice you. It is both mean and presumptuous to add your torture to his!"
"In general I'll allow that it would be, Ellen," she continued; "but what misery laid on Heathcliff could content me, unless I have a hand in it? I'd rather he suffered less, if I might cause his sufferings and he might know that I was the cause. Oh, I owe him so much. On only one condition can I hope to forgive him. It is, if I may take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; for every wrench of agony return a wrench: reduce him to my level. As he was the first to injure, make him the first to implore pardon; and then—why then, Ellen, I might show you some generosity. But it is utterly impossible I can ever be revenged, and therefore I cannot forgive him. Hindley wanted some water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was."
"Not as ill as I wish," he replied. "But leaving out my arm, every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of imps!"
"Yes, no wonder," was my next remark. "Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm: she meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her. It's well people don't really rise from their grave, or, last night, she might have witnessed a repulsive scene! Are not you bruised, and cut over your chest and shoulders?"
"I can't say," he answered, "but what do you mean? Did he dare to strike me when I was down?"
"He trampled on and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground," I whispered. "And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth; because he's only half man: not so much, and the rest fiend."
"Mr. Earnshaw looked up, like me, to the countenance of our mutual foe; who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him: the longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features."
"Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I'd go to hell with joy," groaned the impatient man, writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair, convinced of his inadequacy for the struggle."
"Nay, it's enough that he has murdered one of you," I observed aloud. "At the Grange, every one knows your sister would have been living now had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff. After all, it is preferable to be hated than loved by him. When I recollect how happy we were—how happy Catherine was before he came—I'm fit to curse the day."
"Most likely, Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said, than the spirit of the person who said it. His attention was roused, I saw, for his eyes rained down tears among the ashes, and he drew his breath in suffocating sighs. I stared full at him, and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision."
"Get up, and begone out of my sight," said the mourner."
"I guessed he uttered those words, at least, though his voice was hardly intelligible."
"I beg your pardon," I replied. "But I loved Catherine too; and her brother requires attendance, which, for her sake, I shall supply. Now, that she's dead, I see her in Hindley: Hindley has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and made them black and red; and her—"
"Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!" he cried, making a movement that caused me to make one also."
"But then," I continued, holding myself ready to flee, "if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she would soon have presented a similar picture! She wouldn't have borne your abominable behaviour quietly: her detestation and disgust must have found voice."
"The back of the settle and Earnshaw's person interposed between me and him; so instead of endeavouring to reach me, he snatched a dinner–knife from the table and flung it at my head. It struck beneath my ear, and stopped the sentence I was uttering; but, pulling it out, I sprang to the door and delivered another; which I hope went a little deeper than his missile. The last glimpse I caught of him was a furious rush on his part, checked by the embrace of his host; and both fell locked together on the hearth. In my flight through the kitchen I bid Joseph speed to his master; I knocked over Hareton, who was hanging a litter of puppies from a chair–back in the doorway; and, blessed as a soul escaped from purgatory, I bounded, leaped, and flew down the steep road; then, quitting its windings, shot direct across the moor, rolling over banks, and wading through marshes: precipitating myself, in fact, towards the beacon–light of the Grange. And far rather would I be condemned to a perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night, abide beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again."
Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea; then she rose, and bidding me put on her bonnet, and a great shawl I had brought, and turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to remain another hour, she stepped on to a chair, kissed Edgar's and Catherine's portraits, bestowed a similar salute on me, and descended to the carriage, accompanied by Fanny, who yelped wild with joy at recovering her mistress. She was driven away, never to revisit this neighbourhood: but a regular correspondence was established between her and my master when things were more settled. I believe her new abode was in the south, near London; there she had a son born a few months subsequent to her escape. He was christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an ailing, peevish creature.
Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where she lived. I refused to tell. He remarked that it was not of any moment, only she must beware of coming to her brother: she should not be with him, if he had to keep her himself. Though I would give no information, he discovered, through some of the other servants, both her place of residence and the existence of the child. Still, he didn't molest her: for which forbearance she might thank his aversion, I suppose. He often asked about the infant, when he saw me; and on hearing its name, smiled grimly, and observed: "They wish me to hate it too, do they?"
"I don't think they wish you to know anything about it," I answered.
"But I'll have it," he said, "when I want it. They may reckon on that!"
Fortunately its mother died before the time arrived; some thirteen years after the decease of Catherine, when Linton was twelve, or a little more.
On the day succeeding Isabella's unexpected visit I had no opportunity of speaking to my master: he shunned conversation, and was fit for discussing nothing. When I could get him to listen, I saw it pleased him that his sister had left her husband; whom he abhorred with an intensity which the mildness of his nature would scarcely seem to allow. So deep and sensitive was his aversion, that he refrained from going anywhere where he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff. Grief, and that together, transformed him into a complete hermit: he threw up his office of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the village on all occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within the limits of his park and grounds; only varied by solitary rambles on the moors, and visits to the grave of his wife, mostly at evening, or early morning before other wanderers were abroad. But he was too good to be thoroughly unhappy long. He didn't pray for Catherine's soul to haunt him. Time brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy. He recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the better world; where he doubted not she was gone.
And he had earthly consolation and affections also. For a few days, I said, he seemed regardless of the puny successor to the departed: that coldness melted as fast as snow in April, and ere the tiny thing could stammer a word or totter a step it wielded a despot's sceptre in his heart. It was named Catherine; but he never called it the name in full, as he had never called the first Catherine short: probably because Heathcliff had a habit of doing so. The little one was always Cathy: it formed to him a distinction from the mother, and yet a connection with her; and his attachment sprang from its relation to her, far more than from its being his own.
I used to draw a comparison between him and Hindley Earnshaw, and perplex myself to explain satisfactorily why their conduct was so opposite in similar circumstances. They had both been fond husbands, and were both attached to their children; and I could not see how they shouldn't both have taken the same road, for good or evil. But, I thought in my mind, Hindley, with apparently the stronger head, has shown himself sadly the worse and the weaker man. When his ship struck, the captain abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel. Linton, on the contrary, displayed the true courage of a loyal and faithful soul: he trusted God; and God comforted him. One hoped, and the other despaired: they chose their own lots, and were righteously doomed to endure them. But you'll not want to hear my moralising, Mr. Lockwood; you'll judge, as well as I can, all these things: at least, you'll think you will, and that's the same. The end of Earnshaw was what might have been expected; it followed fast on his sister's: there were scarcely six months between them. We, at the Grange, never got a very succinct account of his state preceding it; all that I did learn was on occasion of going to aid in the preparations for the funeral. Mr. Kenneth came to announce the event to my master.
"Well, Nelly," said he, riding into the yard one morning, too early not to alarm me with an instant presentiment of bad news, "it's yours and my turn to go into mourning at present. Who's given us the slip now, do you think?"
"Who?" I asked in a flurry.
"Why, guess!" he returned, dismounting, and slinging his bridle on a hook by the door. "And nip up the corner of your apron: I'm certain you'll need it."
"Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely?" I exclaimed.
"What! would you have tears for him?" said the doctor. "No, Heathcliff's a tough young fellow: he looks blooming to–day. I've just seen him. He's rapidly regaining flesh since he lost his better half."
"Who is it, then, Mr. Kenneth?" I repeated impatiently.
"Hindley Earnshaw! Your old friend Hindley," he replied, "and my wicked gossip: though he's been too wild for me this long while. There! I said we should draw water. But cheer up! He died true to his character: drunk as a lord. Poor lad! I'm sorry, too. One can't help missing an old companion: though he had the worst tricks with him that ever man imagined, and has done me many a rascally turn. He's barely twenty–seven, it seems; that's your own age: who would have thought you were born in one year?"
I confess this blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs. Linton's death: ancient associations lingered round my heart; I sat down in the porch and wept as for a blood relation, desiring Mr. Kenneth to get another servant to introduce him to the master. I could not hinder myself from pondering on the question—"Had he had fair play?" Whatever I did, that idea would bother me: it was so tiresomely pertinacious that I resolved on requesting leave to go to Wuthering Heights, and assist in the last duties to the dead. Mr. Linton was extremely reluctant to consent, but I pleaded eloquently for the friendless condition in which he lay; and I said my old master and foster–brother had a claim on my services as strong as his own. Besides, I reminded him that the child Hareton was his wife's nephew, and, in the absence of nearer kin, he ought to act as its guardian; and he ought to and must inquire how the property was left, and look over the concerns of his brother–in–law. He was unfit for attending to such matters then, but he bid me speak to his lawyer; and at length permitted me to go. His lawyer had been Earnshaw's also: I called at the village, and asked him to accompany me. He shook his head, and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone; affirming, if the truth were known, Hareton would be found little else than a beggar.
"His father died in debt," he said; "the whole property is mortgaged, and the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he may be inclined to deal leniently towards him."
When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see everything carried on decently; and Joseph, who appeared in sufficient distress, expressed satisfaction at my presence. Mr. Heathcliff said he did not perceive that I was wanted; but I might stay and order the arrangements for the funeral, if I chose.
"Correctly," he remarked, "that fool's body should he buried at the cross–roads, without ceremony of any kind. I happened to leave him ten minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard him sporting like a horse; and there he was, laid over the settle: flaying and scalping would not have wakened him. I sent for Kenneth, and he came; but not till the beast had changed into carrion: he was both dead and cold, and stark; and so you'll allow it was useless making more stir about him!"
The old servant confirmed this statement, but muttered:
"I'd rayther he'd goan hisseln for t" doctor! I sud ha,' taen tent o' t' maister better nor him—and he warn't deead when I left, naught o' t' soart!'
I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff said I might have my own way there too: only, he desired me to remember that the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket. He maintained a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow: if anything, it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something like exultation in his aspect: it was just when the people were bearing the coffin from the house. He had the hypocrisy to represent a mourner: and previous to following with Hareton, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, "Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!" The unsuspecting thing was pleased at this speech: he played with Heathcliff's whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but I divined its meaning, and observed tartly, "That boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir. There is nothing in the world less yours than he is!"
"Does Linton say so?" he demanded.
"Of course—he has ordered me to take him," I replied.
"Well," said the scoundrel, "we'll not argue the subject now: but I have a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young one; so intimate to your master that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he attempt to remove it. I don't engage to let Hareton go undisputed; but I'll be pretty sure to make the other come! Remember to tell him."
This hint was enough to bind our hands. I repeated its substance on my return; and Edgar Linton, little interested at the commencement, spoke no more of interfering. I'm not aware that he could have done it to any purpose, had he been ever so willing.
The guest was now the master of Wuthering Heights: he held firm possession, and proved to the attorney—who, in his turn, proved it to Mr. Linton—that Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned for cash to supply his mania for gaming; and he, Heathcliff, was the mortgagee. In that manner Hareton, who should now be the first gentleman in the neighbourhood, was reduced to a state of complete dependence on his father's inveterate enemy; and lives in his own house as a servant, deprived of the advantage of wages: quite unable to right himself, because of his friendlessness, and his ignorance that he has been wronged. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 23 | The twelve years, continued Mrs. Dean, following that dismal period were the happiest of my life: my greatest troubles in their passage rose from our little lady's trifling illnesses, which she had to experience in common with all children, rich and poor. For the rest, after the first six months, she grew like a larch, and could walk and talk too, in her own way, before the heath blossomed a second time over Mrs. Linton's dust. She was the most winning thing that ever brought sunshine into a desolate house: a real beauty in face, with the Earnshaws' handsome dark eyes, but the Lintons' fair skin and small features, and yellow curling hair. Her spirit was high, though not rough, and qualified by a heart sensitive and lively to excess in its affections. That capacity for intense attachments reminded me of her mother: still she did not resemble her: for she could be soft and mild as a dove, and she had a gentle voice and pensive expression: her anger was never furious; her love never fierce: it was deep and tender. However, it must be acknowledged, she had faults to foil her gifts. A propensity to be saucy was one; and a perverse will, that indulged children invariably acquire, whether they be good tempered or cross. If a servant chanced to vex her, it was always—"I shall tell papa!" And if he reproved her, even by a look, you would have thought it a heart–breaking business: I don't believe he ever did speak a harsh word to her. He took her education entirely on himself, and made it an amusement. Fortunately, curiosity and a quick intellect made her an apt scholar: she learned rapidly and eagerly, and did honour to his teaching.
Till she reached the age of thirteen she had not once been beyond the range of the park by herself. Mr. Linton would take her with him a mile or so outside, on rare occasions; but he trusted her to no one else. Gimmerton was an unsubstantial name in her ears; the chapel, the only building she had approached or entered, except her own home. Wuthering Heights and Mr. Heathcliff did not exist for her: she was a perfect recluse; and, apparently, perfectly contented. Sometimes, indeed, while surveying the country from her nursery window, she would observe—
"Ellen, how long will it be before I can walk to the top of those hills? I wonder what lies on the other side—is it the sea?"
"No, Miss Cathy," I would answer; "it is hills again, just like these."
"And what are those golden rocks like when you stand under them?" she once asked.
The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice; especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow. I explained that they were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish a stunted tree.
"And why are they bright so long after it is evening here?" she pursued.
"Because they are a great deal higher up than we are," replied I; "you could not climb them, they are too high and steep. In winter the frost is always there before it comes to us; and deep into summer I have found snow under that black hollow on the north–east side!"
"Oh, you have been on them!" she cried gleefully. "Then I can go, too, when I am a woman. Has papa been, Ellen?"
"Papa would tell you, Miss," I answered, hastily, "that they are not worth the trouble of visiting. The moors, where you ramble with him, are much nicer; and Thrushcross Park is the finest place in the world."
"But I know the park, and I don't know those," she murmured to herself. "And I should delight to look round me from the brow of that tallest point: my little pony Minny shall take me some time."
One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head with a desire to fulfil this project: she teased Mr. Linton about it; and he promised she should have the journey when she got older. But Miss Catherine measured her age by months, and, "Now, am I old enough to go to Penistone Crags?" was the constant question in her mouth. The road thither wound close by Wuthering Heights. Edgar had not the heart to pass it; so she received as constantly the answer, "Not yet, love: not yet."
I said Mrs. Heathcliff lived above a dozen years after quitting her husband. Her family were of a delicate constitution: she and Edgar both lacked the ruddy health that you will generally meet in these parts. What her last illness was, I am not certain: I conjecture, they died of the same thing, a kind of fever, slow at its commencement, but incurable, and rapidly consuming life towards the close. She wrote to inform her brother of the probable conclusion of a four–months' indisposition under which she had suffered, and entreated him to come to her, if possible; for she had much to settle, and she wished to bid him adieu, and deliver Linton safely into his hands. Her hope was that Linton might be left with him, as he had been with her: his father, she would fain convince herself, had no desire to assume the burden of his maintenance or education. My master hesitated not a moment in complying with her request: reluctant as he was to leave home at ordinary calls, he flew to answer this; commanding Catherine to my peculiar vigilance, in his absence, with reiterated orders that she must not wander out of the park, even under my escort he did not calculate on her going unaccompanied.
He was away three weeks. The first day or two my charge sat in a corner of the library, too sad for either reading or playing: in that quiet state she caused me little trouble; but it was succeeded by an interval of impatient, fretful weariness; and being too busy, and too old then, to run up and down amusing her, I hit on a method by which she might entertain herself. I used to send her on her travels round the grounds—now on foot, and now on a pony; indulging her with a patient audience of all her real and imaginary adventures when she returned.
The summer shone in full prime; and she took such a taste for this solitary rambling that she often contrived to remain out from breakfast till tea; and then the evenings were spent in recounting her fanciful tales. I did not fear her breaking bounds; because the gates were generally looked, and I thought she would scarcely venture forth alone, if they had stood wide open. Unluckily, my confidence proved misplaced. Catherine came to me, one morning, at eight o'clock, and said she was that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan; and I must give her plenty of provision for herself and beasts: a horse, and three camels, personated by a large hound and a couple of pointers. I got together good store of dainties, and slung them in a basket on one side of the saddle; and she sprang up as gay as a fairy, sheltered by her wide–brimmed hat and gauze veil from the July sun, and trotted off with a merry laugh, mocking my cautious counsel to avoid galloping, and come back early. The naughty thing never made her appearance at tea. One traveller, the hound, being an old dog and fond of its ease, returned; but neither Cathy, nor the pony, nor the two pointers were visible in any direction: I despatched emissaries down this path, and that path, and at last went wandering in search of her myself. There was a labourer working at a fence round a plantation, on the borders of the grounds. I inquired of him if he had seen our young lady.
"I saw her at morn," he replied: "she would have me to cut her a hazel switch, and then she leapt her Galloway over the hedge yonder, where it is lowest, and galloped out of sight."
You may guess how I felt at hearing this news. It struck me directly she must have started for Penistone Crags. "What will become of her?" I ejaculated, pushing through a gap which the man was repairing, and making straight to the high–road. I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect, far or near. The Crags lie about a mile and a half beyond Mr. Heathcliff's place, and that is four from the Grange, so I began to fear night would fall ere I could reach them. "And what if she should have slipped in clambering among them," I reflected, "and been killed, or broken some of her bones?" My suspense was truly painful; and, at first, it gave me delightful relief to observe, in hurrying by the farmhouse, Charlie, the fiercest of the pointers, lying under a window, with swelled head and bleeding ear. I opened the wicket and ran to the door, knocking vehemently for admittance. A woman whom I knew, and who formerly lived at Gimmerton, answered: she had been servant there since the death of Mr. Earnshaw.
"Ah," said she, "you are come a–seeking your little mistress! Don't be frightened. She's here safe: but I'm glad it isn't the master."
"He is not at home then, is he?" I panted, quite breathless with quick walking and alarm.
"No, no," she replied: "both he and Joseph are off, and I think they won't return this hour or more. Step in and rest you a bit."
I entered, and beheld my stray lamb seated on the hearth, rocking herself in a little chair that had been her mother's when a child. Her hat was hung against the wall, and she seemed perfectly at home, laughing and chattering, in the best spirits imaginable, to Hareton—now a great, strong lad of eighteen—who stared at her with considerable curiosity and astonishment: comprehending precious little of the fluent succession of remarks and questions which her tongue never ceased pouring forth.
"Very well, Miss!" I exclaimed, concealing my joy under an angry countenance. "This is your last ride, till papa comes back. I'll not trust you over the threshold again, you naughty, naughty girl!"
"Aha, Ellen!" she cried, gaily, jumping up and running to my side. "I shall have a pretty story to tell to–night; and so you've found me out. Have you ever been here in your life before?"
"Put that hat on, and home at once," said I. "I'm dreadfully grieved at you, Miss Cathy: you've done extremely wrong! It's no use pouting and crying: that won't repay the trouble I've had, scouring the country after you. To think how Mr. Linton charged me to keep you in; and you stealing off so! It shows you are a cunning little fox, and nobody will put faith in you any more."
"What have I done?" sobbed she, instantly checked. "Papa charged me nothing: he'll not scold me, Ellen—he's never cross, like you!"
"Come, come!" I repeated. "I'll tie the riband. Now, let us have no petulance. Oh, for shame! You thirteen years old, and such a baby!"
This exclamation was caused by her pushing the hat from her head, and retreating to the chimney out of my reach.
"Nay," said the servant, "don't be hard on the bonny lass, Mrs. Dean. We made her stop: she'd fain have ridden forwards, afeard you should be uneasy. Hareton offered to go with her, and I thought he should: it's a wild road over the hills."
Hareton, during the discussion, stood with his hands in his pockets, too awkward to speak; though he looked as if he did not relish my intrusion.
"How long am I to wait?" I continued, disregarding the woman's interference. "It will be dark in ten minutes. Where is the pony, Miss Cathy? And where is Phoenix? I shall leave you, unless you be quick; so please yourself."
"The pony is in the yard," she replied, "and Phoenix is shut in there. He's bitten—and so is Charlie. I was going to tell you all about it; but you are in a bad temper, and don't deserve to hear."
I picked up her hat, and approached to reinstate it; but perceiving that the people of the house took her part, she commenced capering round the room; and on my giving chase, ran like a mouse over and under and behind the furniture, rendering it ridiculous for me to pursue. Hareton and the woman laughed, and she joined them, and waxed more impertinent still; till I cried, in great irritation,—"Well, Miss Cathy, if you were aware whose house this is you'd be glad enough to get out."
"It's your father's, isn't it?" said she, turning to Hareton.
"Nay," he replied, looking down, and blushing bashfully.
He could not stand a steady gaze from her eyes, though they were just his own.
"Whose then—your master's?" she asked.
He coloured deeper, with a different feeling, muttered an oath, and turned away.
"Who is his master?" continued the tiresome girl, appealing to me. "He talked about "our house," and "our folk." I thought he had been the owner's son. And he never said Miss: he should have done, shouldn't he, if he's a servant?"
Hareton grew black as a thunder–cloud at this childish speech. I silently shook my questioner, and at last succeeded in equipping her for departure.
"Now, get my horse," she said, addressing her unknown kinsman as she would one of the stable–boys at the Grange. "And you may come with me. I want to see where the goblin–hunter rises in the marsh, and to hear about the fairishes, as you call them: but make haste! What's the matter? Get my horse, I say."
"I'll see thee damned before I be thy servant!" growled the lad.
"You'll see me what!" asked Catherine in surprise.
"Damned—thou saucy witch!" he replied.
"There, Miss Cathy! you see you have got into pretty company," I interposed. "Nice words to be used to a young lady! Pray don't begin to dispute with him. Come, let us seek for Minny ourselves, and begone."
"But, Ellen," cried she, staring fixed in astonishment, "how dare he speak so to me? Mustn't he be made to do as I ask him? You wicked creature, I shall tell papa what you said.—Now, then!"
Hareton did not appear to feel this threat; so the tears sprang into her eyes with indignation. "You bring the pony," she exclaimed, turning to the woman, "and let my dog free this moment!"
"Softly, Miss," answered she addressed: "you'll lose nothing by being civil. Though Mr. Hareton, there, be not the master's son, he's your cousin: and I was never hired to serve you."
"He my cousin!" cried Cathy, with a scornful laugh.
"Yes, indeed," responded her reprover.
"Oh, Ellen! don't let them say such things," she pursued in great trouble. "Papa is gone to fetch my cousin from London: my cousin is a gentleman's son. That my—" she stopped, and wept outright; upset at the bare notion of relationship with such a clown.
"Hush, hush!" I whispered; "people can have many cousins and of all sorts, Miss Cathy, without being any the worse for it; only they needn't keep their company, if they be disagreeable and bad."
"He's not—he's not my cousin, Ellen!" she went on, gathering fresh grief from reflection, and flinging herself into my arms for refuge from the idea.
I was much vexed at her and the servant for their mutual revelations; having no doubt of Linton's approaching arrival, communicated by the former, being reported to Mr. Heathcliff; and feeling as confident that Catherine's first thought on her father's return would be to seek an explanation of the latter's assertion concerning her rude–bred kindred. Hareton, recovering from his disgust at being taken for a servant, seemed moved by her distress; and, having fetched the pony round to the door, he took, to propitiate her, a fine crooked–legged terrier whelp from the kennel, and putting it into her hand, bid her whist! for he meant nought. Pausing in her lamentations, she surveyed him with a glance of awe and horror, then burst forth anew.
I could scarcely refrain from smiling at this antipathy to the poor fellow; who was a well–made, athletic youth, good–looking in features, and stout and healthy, but attired in garments befitting his daily occupations of working on the farm and lounging among the moors after rabbits and game. Still, I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed. Good things lost amid a wilderness of weeds, to be sure, whose rankness far over–topped their neglected growth; yet, notwithstanding, evidence of a wealthy soil, that might yield luxuriant crops under other and favourable circumstances. Mr. Heathcliff, I believe, had not treated him physically ill; thanks to his fearless nature, which offered no temptation to that course of oppression: he had none of the timid susceptibility that would have given zest to ill–treatment, in Heathcliff's judgment. He appeared to have bent his malevolence on making him a brute: he was never taught to read or write; never rebuked for any bad habit which did not annoy his keeper; never led a single step towards virtue, or guarded by a single precept against vice. And from what I heard, Joseph contributed much to his deterioration, by a narrow–minded partiality which prompted him to flatter and pet him, as a boy, because he was the head of the old family. And as he had been in the habit of accusing Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, when children, of putting the master past his patience, and compelling him to seek solace in drink by what he termed their "offald ways," so at present he laid the whole burden of Hareton's faults on the shoulders of the usurper of his property. If the lad swore, he wouldn't correct him: nor however culpably he behaved. It gave Joseph satisfaction, apparently, to watch him go the worst lengths: he allowed that the lad was ruined: that his soul was abandoned to perdition; but then he reflected that Heathcliff must answer for it. Hareton's blood would be required at his hands; and there lay immense consolation in that thought. Joseph had instilled into him a pride of name, and of his lineage; he would, had he dared, have fostered hate between him and the present owner of the Heights: but his dread of that owner amounted to superstition; and he confined his feelings regarding him to muttered innuendoes and private comminations. I don't pretend to be intimately acquainted with the mode of living customary in those days at Wuthering Heights: I only speak from hearsay; for I saw little. The villagers affirmed Mr. Heathcliff was near, and a cruel hard landlord to his tenants; but the house, inside, had regained its ancient aspect of comfort under female management, and the scenes of riot common in Hindley's time were not now enacted within its walls. The master was too gloomy to seek companionship with any people, good or bad; and he is yet.
This, however, is not making progress with my story. Miss Cathy rejected the peace–offering of the terrier, and demanded her own dogs, Charlie and Phoenix. They came limping and hanging their heads; and we set out for home, sadly out of sorts, every one of us. I could not wring from my little lady how she had spent the day; except that, as I supposed, the goal of her pilgrimage was Penistone Crags; and she arrived without adventure to the gate of the farm–house, when Hareton happened to issue forth, attended by some canine followers, who attacked her train. They had a smart battle, before their owners could separate them: that formed an introduction. Catherine told Hareton who she was, and where she was going; and asked him to show her the way: finally, beguiling him to accompany her. He opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave, and twenty other queer places. But, being in disgrace, I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite till she hurt his feelings by addressing him as a servant; and Heathcliff's housekeeper hurt hers by calling him her cousin. Then the language he had held to her rankled in her heart; she who was always "love," and "darling," and "queen," and "angel," with everybody at the Grange, to be insulted so shockingly by a stranger! She did not comprehend it; and hard work I had to obtain a promise that she would not lay the grievance before her father. I explained how he objected to the whole household at the Heights, and how sorry he would be to find she had been there; but I insisted most on the fact, that if she revealed my negligence of his orders, he would perhaps be so angry that I should have to leave; and Cathy couldn't bear that prospect: she pledged her word, and kept it for my sake. After all, she was a sweet little girl. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 24 | A letter, edged with black, announced the day of my master's return, Isabella was dead; and he wrote to bid me get mourning for his daughter, and arrange a room, and other accommodations, for his youthful nephew. Catherine ran wild with joy at the idea of welcoming her father back; and indulged most sanguine anticipations of the innumerable excellencies of her "real" cousin. The evening of their expected arrival came. Since early morning she had been busy ordering her own small affairs; and now attired in her new black frock—poor thing! her aunt's death impressed her with no definite sorrow—she obliged me, by constant worrying, to walk with her down through the grounds to meet them.
"Linton is just six months younger than I am," she chattered, as we strolled leisurely over the swells and hollows of mossy turf, under shadow of the trees. "How delightful it will be to have him for a playfellow! Aunt Isabella sent papa a beautiful lock of his hair; it was lighter than mine—more flaxen, and quite as fine. I have it carefully preserved in a little glass box; and I've often thought what a pleasure it would be to see its owner. Oh! I am happy—and papa, dear, dear papa! Come, Ellen, let us run! come, run."
She ran, and returned and ran again, many times before my sober footsteps reached the gate, and then she seated herself on the grassy bank beside the path, and tried to wait patiently; but that was impossible: she couldn't be still a minute.
"How long they are!" she exclaimed. "Ah, I see, some dust on the road—they are coming! No! When will they be here? May we not go a little way—half a mile, Ellen, only just half a mile? Do say Yes: to that clump of birches at the turn!"
I refused staunchly. At length her suspense was ended: the travelling carriage rolled in sight. Miss Cathy shrieked and stretched out her arms as soon as she caught her father's face looking from the window. He descended, nearly as eager as herself; and a considerable interval elapsed ere they had a thought to spare for any but themselves. While they exchanged caresses I took a peep in to see after Linton. He was asleep in a corner, wrapped in a warm, fur–lined cloak, as if it had been winter. A pale, delicate, effeminate boy, who might have been taken for my master's younger brother, so strong was the resemblance: but there was a sickly peevishness in his aspect that Edgar Linton never had. The latter saw me looking; and having shaken hands, advised me to close the door, and leave him undisturbed; for the journey had fatigued him. Cathy would fain have taken one glance, but her father told her to come, and they walked together up the park, while I hastened before to prepare the servants.
"Now, darling," said Mr. Linton, addressing his daughter, as they halted at the bottom of the front steps: "your cousin is not so strong or so merry as you are, and he has lost his mother, remember, a very short time since; therefore, don't expect him to play and run about with you directly. And don't harass him much by talking: let him be quiet this evening, at least, will you?"
"Yes, yes, papa," answered Catherine: "but I do want to see him; and he hasn't once looked out."
The carriage stopped; and the sleeper being roused, was lifted to the ground by his uncle.
"This is your cousin Cathy, Linton," he said, putting their little hands together. "She's fond of you already; and mind you don't grieve her by crying to–night. Try to be cheerful now; the travelling is at an end, and you have nothing to do but rest and amuse yourself as you please."
"Let me go to bed, then," answered the boy, shrinking from Catherine's salute; and he put his fingers to remove incipient tears.
"Come, come, there's a good child," I whispered, leading him in. "You'll make her weep too—see how sorry she is for you!"
I do not know whether it was sorrow for him, but his cousin put on as sad a countenance as himself, and returned to her father. All three entered, and mounted to the library, where tea was laid ready. I proceeded to remove Linton's cap and mantle, and placed him on a chair by the table; but he was no sooner seated than he began to cry afresh. My master inquired what was the matter.
"I can't sit on a chair," sobbed the boy.
"Go to the sofa, then, and Ellen shall bring you some tea," answered his uncle patiently.
He had been greatly tried, during the journey, I felt convinced, by his fretful ailing charge. Linton slowly trailed himself off, and lay down. Cathy carried a footstool and her cup to his side. At first she sat silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby. This pleased him, for he was not much better: he dried his eyes, and lightened into a faint smile.
"Oh, he'll do very well," said the master to me, after watching them a minute. "Very well, if we can keep him, Ellen. The company of a child of his own age will instil new spirit into him soon, and by wishing for strength he'll gain it."
"Ay, if we can keep him!" I mused to myself; and sore misgivings came over me that there was slight hope of that. And then, I thought, how ever will that weakling live at Wuthering Heights? Between his father and Hareton, what playmates and instructors they'll be. Our doubts were presently decided—even earlier than I expected. I had just taken the children up–stairs, after tea was finished, and seen Linton asleep—he would not suffer me to leave him till that was the case—I had come down, and was standing by the table in the hall, lighting a bedroom candle for Mr. Edgar, when a maid stepped out of the kitchen and informed me that Mr. Heathcliff's servant Joseph was at the door, and wished to speak with the master.
"I shall ask him what he wants first," I said, in considerable trepidation. "A very unlikely hour to be troubling people, and the instant they have returned from a long journey. I don't think the master can see him."
Joseph had advanced through the kitchen as I uttered these words, and now presented himself in the hall. He was donned in his Sunday garments, with his most sanctimonious and sourest face, and, holding his hat in one hand, and his stick in the other, he proceeded to clean his shoes on the mat.
"Good–evening, Joseph," I said, coldly. "What business brings you here to–night?"
"It's Maister Linton I mun spake to," he answered, waving me disdainfully aside.
"Mr. Linton is going to bed; unless you have something particular to say, I'm sure he won't hear it now," I continued. "You had better sit down in there, and entrust your message to me."
"Which is his rahm?" pursued the fellow, surveying the range of closed doors.
I perceived he was bent on refusing my mediation, so very reluctantly I went up to the library, and announced the unseasonable visitor, advising that he should be dismissed till next day. Mr. Linton had no time to empower me to do so, for Joseph mounted close at my heels, and, pushing into the apartment, planted himself at the far side of the table, with his two fists clapped on the head of his stick, and began in an elevated tone, as if anticipating opposition—
"Hathecliff has sent me for his lad, and I munn't goa back "bout him."
Edgar Linton was silent a minute; an expression of exceeding sorrow overcast his features: he would have pitied the child on his own account; but, recalling Isabella's hopes and fears, and anxious wishes for her son, and her commendations of him to his care, he grieved bitterly at the prospect of yielding him up, and searched in his heart how it might be avoided. No plan offered itself: the very exhibition of any desire to keep him would have rendered the claimant more peremptory: there was nothing left but to resign him. However, he was not going to rouse him from his sleep.
"Tell Mr. Heathcliff," he answered calmly, "that his son shall come to Wuthering Heights to–morrow. He is in bed, and too tired to go the distance now. You may also tell him that the mother of Linton desired him to remain under my guardianship; and, at present, his health is very precarious."
"Noa!" said Joseph, giving a thud with his prop on the floor, and assuming an authoritative air. "Noa! that means naught. Hathecliff maks noa "count o" t" mother, nor ye norther; but he'll heu' his lad; und I mun tak' him—soa now ye knaw!'
"You shall not to–night!" answered Linton decisively. "Walk down stairs at once, and repeat to your master what I have said. Ellen, show him down. Go—"
And, aiding the indignant elder with a lift by the arm, he rid the room of him and closed the door.
"Varrah weell!" shouted Joseph, as he slowly drew off. "To–morn, he's come hisseln, and thrust him out, if ye darr!" |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 25 | To obviate the danger of this threat being fulfilled, Mr. Linton commissioned me to take the boy home early, on Catherine's pony; and, said he—"As we shall now have no influence over his destiny, good or bad, you must say nothing of where he is gone to my daughter: she cannot associate with him hereafter, and it is better for her to remain in ignorance of his proximity; lest she should be restless, and anxious to visit the Heights. Merely tell her his father sent for him suddenly, and he has been obliged to leave us."
Linton was very reluctant to be roused from his bed at five o'clock, and astonished to be informed that he must prepare for further travelling; but I softened off the matter by stating that he was going to spend some time with his father, Mr. Heathcliff, who wished to see him so much, he did not like to defer the pleasure till he should recover from his late journey.
"My father!" he cried, in strange perplexity. "Mamma never told me I had a father. Where does he live? I'd rather stay with uncle."
"He lives a little distance from the Grange," I replied; "just beyond those hills: not so far, but you may walk over here when you get hearty. And you should be glad to go home, and to see him. You must try to love him, as you did your mother, and then he will love you."
"But why have I not heard of him before?" asked Linton. "Why didn't mamma and he live together, as other people do?"
"He had business to keep him in the north," I answered, "and your mother's health required her to reside in the south."
"And why didn't mamma speak to me about him?" persevered the child. "She often talked of uncle, and I learnt to love him long ago. How am I to love papa? I don't know him."
"Oh, all children love their parents," I said. "Your mother, perhaps, thought you would want to be with him if she mentioned him often to you. Let us make haste. An early ride on such a beautiful morning is much preferable to an hour's more sleep."
"Is she to go with us," he demanded, "the little girl I saw yesterday?"
"Not now," replied I.
"Is uncle?" he continued.
"No, I shall be your companion there," I said.
Linton sank back on his pillow and fell into a brown study.
"I won't go without uncle," he cried at length: "I can't tell where you mean to take me."
I attempted to persuade him of the naughtiness of showing reluctance to meet his father; still he obstinately resisted any progress towards dressing, and I had to call for my master's assistance in coaxing him out of bed. The poor thing was finally got off, with several delusive assurances that his absence should be short: that Mr. Edgar and Cathy would visit him, and other promises, equally ill–founded, which I invented and reiterated at intervals throughout the way. The pure heather–scented air, the bright sunshine, and the gentle canter of Minny, relieved his despondency after a while. He began to put questions concerning his new home, and its inhabitants, with greater interest and liveliness.
"Is Wuthering Heights as pleasant a place as Thrushcross Grange?" he inquired, turning to take a last glance into the valley, whence a light mist mounted and formed a fleecy cloud on the skirts of the blue.
"It is not so buried in trees," I replied, "and it is not quite so large, but you can see the country beautifully all round; and the air is healthier for you—fresher and drier. You will, perhaps, think the building old and dark at first; though it is a respectable house: the next best in the neighbourhood. And you will have such nice rambles on the moors. Hareton Earnshaw—that is, Miss Cathy's other cousin, and so yours in a manner—will show you all the sweetest spots; and you can bring a book in fine weather, and make a green hollow your study; and, now and then, your uncle may join you in a walk: he does, frequently, walk out on the hills."
"And what is my father like?" he asked. "Is he as young and handsome as uncle?"
"He's as young," said I; "but he has black hair and eyes, and looks sterner; and he is taller and bigger altogether. He'll not seem to you so gentle and kind at first, perhaps, because it is not his way: still, mind you, be frank and cordial with him; and naturally he'll be fonder of you than any uncle, for you are his own."
"Black hair and eyes!" mused Linton. "I can't fancy him. Then I am not like him, am I?"
"Not much," I answered: not a morsel, I thought, surveying with regret the white complexion and slim frame of my companion, and his large languid eyes—his mother's eyes, save that, unless a morbid touchiness kindled them a moment, they had not a vestige of her sparkling spirit.
"How strange that he should never come to see mamma and me!" he murmured. "Has he ever seen me? If he has, I must have been a baby. I remember not a single thing about him!"
"Why, Master Linton," said I, "three hundred miles is a great distance; and ten years seem very different in length to a grown–up person compared with what they do to you. It is probable Mr. Heathcliff proposed going from summer to summer, but never found a convenient opportunity; and now it is too late. Don't trouble him with questions on the subject: it will disturb him, for no good."
The boy was fully occupied with his own cogitations for the remainder of the ride, till we halted before the farmhouse garden–gate. I watched to catch his impressions in his countenance. He surveyed the carved front and low–browed lattices, the straggling gooseberry–bushes and crooked firs, with solemn intentness, and then shook his head: his private feelings entirely disapproved of the exterior of his new abode. But he had sense to postpone complaining: there might be compensation within. Before he dismounted, I went and opened the door. It was half–past six; the family had just finished breakfast: the servant was clearing and wiping down the table. Joseph stood by his master's chair telling some tale concerning a lame horse; and Hareton was preparing for the hayfield.
"Hallo, Nelly!" said Mr. Heathcliff, when he saw me. "I feared I should have to come down and fetch my property myself. You've brought it, have you? Let us see what we can make of it."
He got up and strode to the door: Hareton and Joseph followed in gaping curiosity. Poor Linton ran a frightened eye over the faces of the three.
"Sure–ly," said Joseph after a grave inspection, "he's swopped wi" ye, Maister, an' yon's his lass!'
Heathcliff, having stared his son into an ague of confusion, uttered a scornful laugh.
"God! what a beauty! what a lovely, charming thing!" he exclaimed. "Hav'n't they reared it on snails and sour milk, Nelly? Oh, damn my soul! but that's worse than I expected—and the devil knows I was not sanguine!"
I bid the trembling and bewildered child get down, and enter. He did not thoroughly comprehend the meaning of his father's speech, or whether it were intended for him: indeed, he was not yet certain that the grim, sneering stranger was his father. But he clung to me with growing trepidation; and on Mr. Heathcliff's taking a seat and bidding him "come hither" he hid his face on my shoulder and wept.
"Tut, tut!" said Heathcliff, stretching out a hand and dragging him roughly between his knees, and then holding up his head by the chin. "None of that nonsense! We're not going to hurt thee, Linton—isn't that thy name? Thou art thy mother's child, entirely! Where is my share in thee, puling chicken?"
He took off the boy's cap and pushed back his thick flaxen curls, felt his slender arms and his small fingers; during which examination Linton ceased crying, and lifted his great blue eyes to inspect the inspector.
"Do you know me?" asked Heathcliff, having satisfied himself that the limbs were all equally frail and feeble.
"No," said Linton, with a gaze of vacant fear.
"You've heard of me, I daresay?"
"No," he replied again.
"No! What a shame of your mother, never to waken your filial regard for me! You are my son, then, I'll tell you; and your mother was a wicked slut to leave you in ignorance of the sort of father you possessed. Now, don't wince, and colour up! Though it is something to see you have not white blood. Be a good lad; and I'll do for you. Nelly, if you be tired you may sit down; if not, get home again. I guess you'll report what you hear and see to the cipher at the Grange; and this thing won't be settled while you linger about it."
"Well," replied I, "I hope you'll be kind to the boy, Mr. Heathcliff, or you'll not keep him long; and he's all you have akin in the wide world, that you will ever know—remember."
"I'll be very kind to him, you needn't fear," he said, laughing. "Only nobody else must be kind to him: I'm jealous of monopolising his affection. And, to begin my kindness, Joseph, bring the lad some breakfast. Hareton, you infernal calf, begone to your work. Yes, Nell," he added, when they had departed, "my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was certain of being his successor. Besides, he's mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendant fairly lord of their estates; my child hiring their children to till their fathers" lands for wages. That is the sole consideration which can make me endure the whelp: I despise him for himself, and hate him for the memories he revives! But that consideration is sufficient: he's as safe with me, and shall be tended as carefully as your master tends his own. I have a room up–stairs, furnished for him in handsome style; I've engaged a tutor, also, to come three times a week, from twenty miles' distance, to teach him what he pleases to learn. I've ordered Hareton to obey him: and in fact I've arranged everything with a view to preserve the superior and the gentleman in him, above his associates. I do regret, however, that he so little deserves the trouble: if I wished any blessing in the world, it was to find him a worthy object of pride; and I'm bitterly disappointed with the whey–faced, whining wretch!'
While he was speaking, Joseph returned bearing a basin of milk–porridge, and placed it before Linton: who stirred round the homely mess with a look of aversion, and affirmed he could not eat it. I saw the old man–servant shared largely in his master's scorn of the child; though he was compelled to retain the sentiment in his heart, because Heathcliff plainly meant his underlings to hold him in honour.
"Cannot ate it?" repeated he, peering in Linton's face, and subduing his voice to a whisper, for fear of being overheard. "But Maister Hareton nivir ate naught else, when he wer a little "un; and what wer gooid enough for him's gooid enough for ye, I's rayther think!"
"I sha'n't eat it!" answered Linton, snappishly. "Take it away."
Joseph snatched up the food indignantly, and brought it to us.
"Is there aught ails th" victuals?' he asked, thrusting the tray under Heathcliff's nose.
"What should ail them?" he said.
"Wah!" answered Joseph, "yon dainty chap says he cannut ate "em. But I guess it's raight! His mother wer just soa—we wer a'most too mucky to sow t" corn for makking her breead."
"Don't mention his mother to me," said the master, angrily. "Get him something that he can eat, that's all. What is his usual food, Nelly?"
I suggested boiled milk or tea; and the housekeeper received instructions to prepare some. Come, I reflected, his father's selfishness may contribute to his comfort. He perceives his delicate constitution, and the necessity of treating him tolerably. I'll console Mr. Edgar by acquainting him with the turn Heathcliff's humour has taken. Having no excuse for lingering longer, I slipped out, while Linton was engaged in timidly rebuffing the advances of a friendly sheep–dog. But he was too much on the alert to be cheated: as I closed the door, I heard a cry, and a frantic repetition of the words—
"Don't leave me! I'll not stay here! I'll not stay here!"
Then the latch was raised and fell: they did not suffer him to come forth. I mounted Minny, and urged her to a trot; and so my brief guardianship ended. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 26 | We had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee, eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and lamentations followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself was obliged to soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon: he added, however, "if I can get him"; and there were no hopes of that. This promise poorly pacified her; but time was more potent; and though still at intervals she inquired of her father when Linton would return, before she did see him again his features had waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him.
When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights, in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young master got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine herself, and was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr. Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he took some trouble to conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same room with him many minutes together. There seldom passed much talk between them: Linton learnt his lessons and spent his evenings in a small apartment they called the parlour: or else lay in bed all day: for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and aches, and pains of some sort.
"And I never know such a fainthearted creature," added the woman; "nor one so careful of hisseln. He will go on, if I leave the window open a bit late in the evening. Oh! it's killing, a breath of night air! And he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and Joseph's bacca–pipe is poison; and he must always have sweets and dainties, and always milk, milk for ever—heeding naught how the rest of us are pinched in winter; and there he'll sit, wrapped in his furred cloak in his chair by the fire, with some toast and water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and if Hareton, for pity, comes to amuse him—Hareton is not bad–natured, though he's rough—they're sure to part, one swearing and the other crying. I believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a mummy, if he were not his son; and I'm certain he would be fit to turn him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives hisseln. But then he won't go into danger of temptation: he never enters the parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house where he is, he sends him up–stairs directly."
I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not so originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed: though still I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a wish that he had been left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to gain information: he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and would have run some risk to see him; and he told me once to ask the housekeeper whether he ever came into the village? She said he had only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father; and both times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days afterwards. That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two years after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her successor; she lives there still.
Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the anniversary of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably spent that day alone in the library; and walked, at dusk, as far as Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own resources for amusement. This twentieth of March was a beautiful spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble on the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if we went only a short distance and were back within the hour.
"So make haste, Ellen!" she cried. "I know where I wish to go; where a colony of moor–game are settled: I want to see whether they have made their nests yet."
"That must be a good distance up," I answered; "they don't breed on the edge of the moor."
"No, it's not," she said. "I've gone very near with papa."
I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content.
"Well," said I, "where are your moor–game, Miss Cathy? We should be at them: the Grange park–fence is a great way off now."
"Oh, a little further—only a little further, Ellen," was her answer, continually. "Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the birds."
But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that, at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and retrace our steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a long way; she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still sprang on, and I was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr. Heathcliff himself.
Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least, hunting out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's land, and he was reproving the poacher.
"I've neither taken any nor found any," she said, as I toiled to them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. "I didn't mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up here, and I wished to see the eggs."
Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill–meaning smile, expressing his acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence towards it, and demanded who "papa" was?
"Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange," she replied. "I thought you did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way."
"You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?" he said, sarcastically.
"And what are you?" inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the speaker. "That man I've seen before. Is he your son?"
She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.
"Miss Cathy," I interrupted, "it will be three hours instead of one that we are out, presently. We really must go back."
"No, that man is not my son," answered Heathcliff, pushing me aside. "But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and, though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be the better for a little rest. Will you just turn this nab of heath, and walk into my house? You'll get home earlier for the ease; and you shall receive a kind welcome."
I whispered Catherine that she mustn't, on any account, accede to the proposal: it was entirely out of the question.
"Why?" she asked, aloud. "I'm tired of running, and the ground is dewy: I can't sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I have seen his son. He's mistaken, I think; but I guess where he lives: at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone" Crags. Don't you?'
"I do. Come, Nelly, hold your tongue—it will he a treat for her to look in on us. Hareton, get forwards with the lass. You shall walk with me, Nelly."
"No, she's not going to any such place," I cried, struggling to release my arm, which he had seized: but she was almost at the door–stones already, scampering round the brow at full speed. Her appointed companion did not pretend to escort her: he shied off by the road–side, and vanished.
"Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong," I continued: "you know you mean no good. And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon as ever we return; and I shall have the blame."
"I want her to see Linton," he answered; "he's looking better these few days; it's not often he's fit to be seen. And we'll soon persuade her to keep the visit secret: where is the harm of it?"
"The harm of it is, that her father would hate me if he found I suffered her to enter your house; and I am convinced you have a bad design in encouraging her to do so," I replied.
"My design is as honest as possible. I'll inform you of its whole scope," he said. "That the two cousins may fall in love, and get married. I'm acting generously to your master: his young chit has no expectations, and should she second my wishes she'll be provided for at once as joint successor with Linton."
"If Linton died," I answered, "and his life is quite uncertain, Catherine would be the heir."
"No, she would not," he said. "There is no clause in the will to secure it so: his property would go to me; but, to prevent disputes, I desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about."
"And I'm resolved she shall never approach your house with me again," I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited our coming.
Heathcliff bade me be quiet; and, preceding us up the path, hastened to open the door. My young lady gave him several looks, as if she could not exactly make up her mind what to think of him; but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in addressing her; and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury. Linton stood on the hearth. He had been out walking in the fields, for his cap was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry shoes. He had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of sixteen. His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun.
"Now, who is that?" asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy. "Can you tell?"
"Your son?" she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and then the other.
"Yes, yes," answered he: "but is this the only time you have beheld him? Think! Ah! you have a short memory. Linton, don't you recall your cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing to see?"
"What, Linton!" cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the name. "Is that little Linton? He's taller than I am! Are you Linton?"
The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself: she kissed him fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had wrought in the appearance of each. Catherine had reached her full height; her figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel, and her whole aspect sparkling with health and spirits. Linton's looks and movements were very languid, and his form extremely slight; but there was a grace in his manner that mitigated these defects, and rendered him not unpleasing. After exchanging numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr. Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention between the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending, that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone.
"And you are my uncle, then!" she cried, reaching up to salute him. "I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don't you visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such close neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so for?"
"I visited it once or twice too often before you were born," he answered. "There—damn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give them to Linton: they are thrown away on me."
"Naughty Ellen!" exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with her lavish caresses. "Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from entering. But I'll take this walk every morning in future: may I, uncle? and sometimes bring papa. Won't you be glad to see us?"
"Of course," replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace, resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors. "But stay," he continued, turning towards the young lady. "Now I think of it, I'd better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice against me: we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with unchristian ferocity; and, if you mention coming here to him, he'll put a veto on your visits altogether. Therefore, you must not mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter: you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it."
"Why did you quarrel?" asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen.
"He thought me too poor to wed his sister," answered Heathcliff, "and was grieved that I got her: his pride was hurt, and he'll never forgive it."
"That's wrong!" said the young lady: "some time I'll tell him so. But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I'll not come here, then; he shall come to the Grange."
"It will be too far for me," murmured her cousin: "to walk four miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then: not every morning, but once or twice a week."
The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt.
"I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour," he muttered to me. "Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value, and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton!—Do you know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else. But I think he's safe from her love. I'll pit him against that paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly. We calculate it will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh, confound the vapid thing! He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her.—Linton!"
"Yes, father," answered the boy.
"Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a rabbit or a weasel's nest? Take her into the garden, before you change your shoes; and into the stable to see your horse."
"Wouldn't you rather sit here?" asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a tone which expressed reluctance to move again.
"I don't know," she replied, casting a longing look to the door, and evidently eager to be active.
He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire. Heathcliff rose, and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently the two re–entered. The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow on his cheeks and his wetted hair.
"Oh, I'll ask you, uncle," cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the housekeeper's assertion. "That is not my cousin, is he?"
"Yes," he, replied, "your mother's nephew. Don't you like him!"
Catherine looked queer.
"Is he not a handsome lad?" he continued.
The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence in Heathcliff's ear. He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased the frown by exclaiming—
"You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are a—What was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with her round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don't use any bad words; and don't stare when the young lady is not looking at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is; and, when you speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your pockets. Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can."
He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed studying the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's interest. Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small admiration. She then turned her attention to seeking out objects of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to supply the lack of conversation.
"I've tied his tongue," observed Heathcliff. "He'll not venture a single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect meat his age—nay, some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid: so "gaumless," as Joseph calls it?"
"Worse," I replied, "because more sullen with it."
"I've a pleasure in him," he continued, reflecting aloud. "He has satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not enjoy it half so much. But he's no fool; and I can sympathise with all his feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he shall suffer, though. And he'll never be able to emerge from his bathos of coarseness and ignorance. I've got him faster than his scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride in his brutishness. I've taught him to scorn everything extra–animal as silly and weak. Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine. But there's this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving–stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first–rate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing. I have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but I are aware of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll own that I've outmatched Hindley there. If the dead villain could rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring's wrongs, I should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he has in the world!"
Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea. I made no reply, because I saw that he expected none. Meantime, our young companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had denied himself the treat of Catherine's society for fear of a little fatigue. His father remarked the restless glances wandering to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap.
"Get up, you idle boy!" he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness.
"Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of hives."
Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door? Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown.
"It's some damnable writing," he answered. "I cannot read it."
"Can't read it?" cried Catherine; "I can read it: it's English. But I want to know why it is there."
Linton giggled: the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited.
"He does not know his letters," he said to his cousin. "Could you believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?"
"Is he all as he should be?" asked Miss Cathy, seriously; "or is he simple: not right? I've questioned him twice now, and each time he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me. I can hardly understand him, I'm sure!"
Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly; who certainly did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment.
"There's nothing the matter but laziness; is there, Earnshaw?" he said. "My cousin fancies you are an idiot. There you experience the consequence of scorning "book–larning," as you would say. Have you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?"
"Why, where the devil is the use on't?" growled Hareton, more ready in answering his daily companion. He was about to enlarge further, but the two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment: my giddy miss being delighted to discover that she might turn his strange talk to matter of amusement.
"Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?" tittered Linton. "Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your mouth without one. Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do!"
"If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!" retorted the angry boor, retreating, while his face burnt with mingled rage and mortification! for he was conscious of being insulted, and embarrassed how to resent it.
Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I, smiled when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering in the door–way: the boy finding animation enough while discussing Hareton's faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his goings on; and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings, without considering the ill–nature they evinced. I began to dislike, more than to compassionate Linton, and to excuse his father in some measure for holding him cheap.
We stayed till afternoon: I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner; but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained ignorant of our prolonged absence. As we walked home, I would fain have enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had quitted: but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced against them.
"Aha!" she cried, "you take papa's side, Ellen: you are partial I know; or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the notion that Linton lived a long way from here. I'm really extremely angry; only I'm so pleased I can't show it! But you must hold your tongue about my uncle; he's my uncle, remember; and I'll scold papa for quarrelling with him."
And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince her of her mistake. She did not mention the visit that night, because she did not see Mr. Linton. Next day it all came out, sadly to my chagrin; and still I was not altogether sorry: I thought the burden of directing and warning would be more efficiently borne by him than me. But he was too timid in giving satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun connection with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good reasons for every restraint that harassed her petted will.
"Papa!" she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, "guess whom I saw yesterday, in my walk on the moors. Ah, papa, you started! you've not done right, have you, now? I saw—but listen, and you shall hear how I found you out; and Ellen, who is in league with you, and yet pretended to pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was always disappointed about Linton's coming back!"
She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences; and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me, said nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood from her? Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she might harmlessly enjoy?
"It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff," she answered.
"Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours, Cathy?" he said. "No, it was not because I disliked Mr. Heathcliff, but because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me; and is a most diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if they give him the slightest opportunity. I knew that you could not keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without being brought into contact with him; and I knew he would detest you on my account; so for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that you should not see Linton again. I meant to explain this some time as you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed it."
"But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa," observed Catherine, not at all convinced; "and he didn't object to our seeing each other: he said I might come to his house when I pleased; only I must not tell you, because you had quarrelled with him, and would not forgive him for marrying aunt Isabella. And you won't. You are the one to be blamed: he is willing to let us be friends, at least; Linton and I; and you are not."
My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her uncle–in–law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his property. He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and detestation of his ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever since Mrs. Linton's death. "She might have been living yet, if it had not been for him!" was his constant bitter reflection; and, in his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a murderer. Miss Cathy—conversant with no bad deeds except her own slight acts of disobedience, injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper and thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committed—was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a visitation of remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and shocked at this new view of human nature—excluded from all her studies and all her ideas till now—that Mr. Edgar deemed it unnecessary to pursue the subject. He merely added: "You will know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his house and family; now return to your old employments and amusements, and think no more about them."
Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons for a couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied him into the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual: but in the evening, when she had retired to her room, and I went to help her to undress, I found her crying, on her knees by the bedside.
"Oh, fie, silly child!" I exclaimed. "If you had any real griefs you'd be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety. You never had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine. Suppose, for a minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by yourself in the world: how would you feel, then? Compare the present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful for the friends you have, instead of coveting more."
"I'm not crying for myself, Ellen," she answered, "it's for him. He expected to see me again to–morrow, and there he'll be so disappointed: and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come!"
"Nonsense!" said I, "do you imagine he has thought as much of you as you have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in a hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice, for two afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble himself no further about you."
"But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come?" she asked, rising to her feet. "And just send those books I promised to lend him? His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to have them extremely, when I told him how interesting they were. May I not, Ellen?"
"No, indeed! no, indeed!" replied I with decision. "Then he would write to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No, Miss Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa expects, and I shall see that it is done."
"But how can one little note—?" she recommenced, putting on an imploring countenance.
"Silence!" I interrupted. "We'll not begin with your little notes. Get into bed."
She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not kiss her good–night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door, in great displeasure; but, repenting half–way, I returned softly, and lo! there was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank paper before her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily slipped out of sight on my entrance.
"You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine," I said, "if you write it; and at present I shall put out your candle."
I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap on my hand and a petulant "cross thing!" I then quitted her again, and she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours. The letter was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk–fetcher who came from the village; but that I didn't learn till some time afterwards. Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her temper; though she grew wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by herself and often, if I came near her suddenly while reading, she would start and bend over the book, evidently desirous to hide it; and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out beyond the leaves. She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took special care to remove when she left it.
One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were transmuted into bits of folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions were roused; I determined to take a peep at her mysterious treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my house keys one that would fit the lock. Having opened, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure in my own chamber. Though I could not but suspect, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondence—daily almost, it must have been—from Linton Heathcliff: answers to documents forwarded by her. The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious love–letters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source. Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied Cathy I don't know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer.
Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked something into his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I went round by the garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk between us; but I succeeded in abstracting the epistle; and, threatening serious consequences if he did not look sharp home, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's affectionate composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her cousin's: very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some unripped fringes of the window–curtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair, in its anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her single "Oh!" and the change that transfigured her late happy countenance. Mr. Linton looked up.
"What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself?" he said.
His tone and look assured her he had not been the discoverer of the hoard.
"No, papa!" she gasped. "Ellen! Ellen! come up–stairs—I'm sick!"
I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.
"Oh, Ellen! you have got them," she commenced immediately, dropping on her knees, when we were enclosed alone. "Oh, give them to me, and I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not told papa, Ellen? say you have not? I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do it any more!"
With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up.
"So," I exclaimed, "Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it seems: you may well be ashamed of them! A fine bundle of trash you study in your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it's good enough to be printed! And what do you suppose the master will think when I display it before him? I hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets. For shame! and you must have led the way in writing such absurdities: he would not have thought of beginning, I'm certain."
"I didn't! I didn't!" sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. "I didn't once think of loving him till—"
"Loving!" cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. "Loving! Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life! Now here is the babyish trash. I'm going with it to the library; and we'll see what your father says to such loving."
She sprang at her precious epistles, but I hold them above my head; and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them—do anything rather than show them. And being really fully as much inclined to laugh as scold—for I esteemed it all girlish vanity—I at length relented in a measure, and asked,—"If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?"
"We don't send playthings," cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her shame.
"Nor anything at all, then, my lady?" I said. "Unless you will, here I go."
"I promise, Ellen!" she cried, catching my dress. "Oh, put them in the fire, do, do!"
But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice was too painful to be borne. She earnestly supplicated that I would spare her one or two.
"One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake!"
I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney.
"I will have one, you cruel wretch!" she screamed, darting her hand into the fire, and drawing forth some half–consumed fragments, at the expense of her fingers.
"Very well—and I will have some to exhibit to papa!" I answered, shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the door.
She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me to finish the immolation. It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and interred them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while. She wouldn't dine; but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvellously subdued in outward aspect. Next morning I answered the letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, "Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them." And, henceforth, the little boy came with vacant pockets. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 27 | Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.
Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his.
On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November—a fresh watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds—dark grey streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain—I requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of showers. She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a formal walk which she generally affected if low–spirited—and that she invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her cheek. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze–rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs—my nursery lore—to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express.
"Look, Miss!" I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree. "Winter is not here yet. There's a little flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa?" Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, at length—"No, I'll not touch it: but it looks melancholy, does it not, Ellen?"
"Yes," I observed, "about as starved and suckless as you your cheeks are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low, I daresay I shall keep up with you."
"No," she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.
"Catherine, why are you crying, love?" I asked, approaching and putting my arm over her shoulder. "You mustn't cry because papa has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse."
She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by sobs.
"Oh, it will be something worse," she said. "And what shall I do when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your words, Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead."
"None can tell whether you won't die before us," I replied. "It's wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come before any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty–five. My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr. Linton I were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you have counted, Miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?"
"But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa," she remarked, gazing up with timid hope to seek further consolation.
"Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her," I replied. "She wasn't as happy as Master: she hadn't as much to live for. All you need do, is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that, Cathy! I'll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and reckless, and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a person who would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that you fretted over the separation he has judged it expedient to make."
"I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness," answered my companion. "I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll never—never—oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to vex him. I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I know it by this: I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be: that proves I love him better than myself."
"Good words," I replied. "But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear."
As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild–rose trees shadowing the highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy's present station. In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rose–bushes and black–berry stragglers could yield no assistance in re–ascending. I, like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming—"Ellen! you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side!"
"Stay where you are," I answered; "I have my bundle of keys in my pocket: perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go."
Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last, and found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse; Cathy's dance stopped also.
"Who is that?" I whispered.
"Ellen, I wish you could open the door," whispered back my companion, anxiously.
"Ho, Miss Linton!" cried a deep voice (the rider's), "I'm glad to meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and obtain."
"I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff," answered Catherine. "Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says the same."
"That is nothing to the purpose," said Heathcliff. (He it was.) "I don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand your attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder; and less sensitive, as it turns out. I've got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I'll send them to your father. I presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't you? Well, you dropped Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest: in love, really. As true as I live, he's dying for you; breaking his heart at your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually. Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his idiotcy, he gets worse daily; and he'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!"
"How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?" I called from the inside. "Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone: you won't believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible that a person should die for love of a stranger."
"I was not aware there were eavesdroppers," muttered the detected villain. "Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your double–dealing," he added aloud. "How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door–stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if have not spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father himself entreated him; and don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the same error. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none but you can save him!"
The lock gave way and I issued out.
"I swear Linton is dying," repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me. "And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return till this time next week; and I think your master himself would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin."
"Come in," said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to re–enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.
He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed—"Miss Catherine, I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton; and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh set. He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions; but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call."
I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined instinctively that Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness. Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true.
The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to his room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She returned, and asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together; and afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she was weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed me absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr. Heathcliff's assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would coincide. Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had produced: it was just what he intended.
"You may be right, Ellen," she answered; "but I shall never feel at ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I don't write, and convince him that I shall not change."
What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity? We parted that night—hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's pony. I couldn't bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the tale was founded on fact. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 28 | The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning—half frost, half drizzle—and temporary brooks crossed our path—gurgling from the uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We entered the farm–house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own affirmation.
Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring fire; a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces of toasted oat–cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in? My question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had grown deaf, and repeated it louder.
"Na—ay!" he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. "Na—ay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough."
"Joseph!" cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner room. "How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now. Joseph! come this moment."
Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably. We knew Linton's tones, and entered.
"Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death!" said the boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.
He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him.
"Is that you, Miss Linton?" he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair, in which he reclined. "No—don't kiss me: it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call," continued he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she stood by looking very contrite. "Will you shut the door, if you please? you left it open; and those—those detestable creatures won't bring coals to the fire. It's so cold!"
I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The invalid complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper.
"Well, Linton," murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed, "are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?"
"Why didn't you come before?" he asked. "You should have come, instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I'd far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you" (looking at me) "step into the kitchen and see?"
I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to run to and fro at his behest, I replied—"Nobody is out there but Joseph."
"I want to drink," he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. "Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's miserable! And I'm obliged to come down here—they resolved never to hear me up–stairs."
"Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?" I asked, perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.
"Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least," he cried. "The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings."
Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.
"And are you glad to see me?" asked she, reiterating her former question and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.
"Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours!" he replied. "But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come. And papa swore it was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and said you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you don't despise me, do you, Miss—?"
"I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy," interrupted my young lady. "Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not come when he returns: will he stay away many days?"
"Not many," answered Linton; "but he goes on to the moors frequently, since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and you'd always be ready to help me, wouldn't you?"
"Yes," said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: "if I could only get papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother."
"And then you would like me as well as your father?" observed he, more cheerfully. "But papa says you would love me better than him and all the world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were that."
"No, I should never love anybody better than papa," she returned gravely. "And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you as he is of me."
Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn't succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false.
"Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods," she answered pertly.
"My papa scorns yours!" cried Linton. "He calls him a sneaking fool."
"Yours is a wicked man," retorted Catherine; "and you are very naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did."
"She didn't leave him," said the boy; "you sha'n't contradict me."
"She did," cried my young lady.
"Well, I'll tell you something!" said Linton. "Your mother hated your father: now then."
"Oh!" exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.
"And she loved mine," added he.
"You little liar! I hate you now!" she panted, and her face grew red with passion.
"She did! she did!" sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other disputant, who stood behind.
"Hush, Master Heathcliff!" I said; "that's your father's tale, too, I suppose."
"It isn't: you hold your tongue!" he answered. "She did, she did, Catherine! she did, she did!"
Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the mischief she had done: though she said nothing. I held him till the fit exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire.
"How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?" I inquired, after waiting ten minutes.
"I wish she felt as I do," he replied: "spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was better to–day: and there—" his voice died in a whimper.
"I didn't strike you!" muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent another burst of emotion.
He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and pathos into the inflexions of his voice.
"I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton," she said at length, racked beyond endurance. "But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and I had no idea that you could, either: you're not much, are you, Linton? Don't let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer! speak to me."
"I can't speak to you," he murmured; "you've hurt me so that I shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you'd know what it was; but you'll be comfortably asleep while I'm in agony, and nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful nights!" And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.
"Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights," I said, "it won't be Miss who spoils your ease: you'd be the same had she never come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you'll get quieter when we leave you."
"Must I go?" asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. "Do you want me to go, Linton?"
"You can't alter what you've done," he replied pettishly, shrinking from her, "unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a fever."
"Well, then, I must go?" she repeated.
"Let me alone, at least," said he; "I can't bear your talking."
She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to attempt humouring him. Not so my companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her.
"I shall lift him on to the settle," I said, "and he may roll about as he pleases: we can't stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then, there he is! Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie still."
She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably.
"I can't do with that," he said; "it's not high enough."
Catherine brought another to lay above it.
"That's too high," murmured the provoking thing.
"How must I arrange it, then?" she asked despairingly.
He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support.
"No, that won't do," I said. "You'll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we cannot remain five minutes longer."
"Yes, yes, we can!" replied Cathy. "He's good and patient now. He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will to–night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I musn't come, if I have hurt you."
"You must come, to cure me," he answered. "You ought to come, because you have hurt me: you know you have extremely! I was not as ill when you entered as I am at present—was I?"
"But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.—I didn't do it all," said his cousin. "However, we'll be friends now. And you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?"
"I told you I did," he replied impatiently. "Sit on the settle and let me lean on your knee. That's as mamma used to do, whole afternoons together. Sit quite still and don't talk: but you may sing a song, if you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad—one of those you promised to teach me; or a story. I'd rather have a ballad, though: begin."
Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court, returning for his dinner.
"And to–morrow, Catherine, will you be here to–morrow?" asked young Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.
"No," I answered, "nor next day neither." She, however, gave a different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear.
"You won't go to–morrow, recollect, Miss!" I commenced, when we were out of the house. "You are not dreaming of it, are you?"
She smiled.
"Oh, I'll take good care," I continued: "I'll have that lock mended, and you can escape by no way else."
"I can get over the wall," she said laughing. "The Grange is not a prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost seventeen: I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you know, and wiser: less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I direct him, with some slight coaxing. He's a pretty little darling when he's good. I'd make such a pet of him, if he were mine. We should, never quarrel, should we after we were used to each other? Don't you like him, Ellen?"
"Like him!" I exclaimed. "The worst–tempered bit of a sickly slip that ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured, he'll not win twenty. I doubt whether he'll see spring, indeed. And small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it is for us that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be. I'm glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine."
My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.
"He's younger than I," she answered, after a protracted pause of meditation, "and he ought to live the longest: he will—he must live as long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came into the north; I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails him, the same as papa has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn't he?"
"Well, well," I cried, "after all, we needn't trouble ourselves; for listen, Miss,—and mind, I'll keep my word,—if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be revived."
"It has been revived," muttered Cathy, sulkily.
"Must not be continued, then," I said.
"We'll see," was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to toil in the rear.
We both reached home before our dinner–time; my master supposed we had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at the Heights had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties: a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am thankful to say, since.
My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton's room she appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I generally needed nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea. And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good–night, I remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender fingers, instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold ride across the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library. |
Wuthering Height | Emily Bronte | [
"romance",
"gothic"
] | Chapter 29 | At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move about the house. And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak. We were in the library, the master having gone to bed: she consented, rather unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused. She selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about an hour; then came frequent questions.
"Ellen, are not you tired? Hadn't you better lie down now? You'll be sick, keeping up so long, Ellen."
"No, no, dear, I'm not tired," I returned, continually.
Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her disrelish for her occupation. It changed to yawning, and stretching, and—
"Ellen, I'm tired."
"Give over then and talk," I answered.
That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep; judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a headache, and left me. I thought her conduct odd; and having remained alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of up–stairs in the dark. No Catherine could I discover up–stairs, and none below. The servants affirmed they had not seen her. I listened at Mr. Edgar's door; all was silence. I returned to her apartment, extinguished my candle, and seated myself in the window.
The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and I reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head to walk about the garden, for refreshment. I did detect a figure creeping along the inner fence of the park; but it was not my young mistress: on its emerging into the light, I recognised one of the grooms. He stood a considerable period, viewing the carriage–road through the grounds; then started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and reappeared presently, leading Miss's pony; and there she was, just dismounted, and walking by its side. The man took his charge stealthily across the grass towards the stable. Cathy entered by the casement–window of the drawing–room, and glided noiselessly up to where I awaited her. She put the door gently too, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her hat, and was proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay aside her mantle, when I suddenly rose and revealed myself. The surprise petrified her an instant: she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and stood fixed.
"My dear Miss Catherine," I began, too vividly impressed by her recent kindness to break into a scold, "where have you been riding out at this hour? And why should you try to deceive me by telling a tale? Where have you been? Speak!"
"To the bottom of the park," she stammered. "I didn't tell a tale."
"And nowhere else?" I demanded.
"No," was the muttered reply.
"Oh, Catherine!" I cried, sorrowfully. "You know you have been doing wrong, or you wouldn't be driven to uttering an untruth to me. That does grieve me. I'd rather be three months ill, than hear you frame a deliberate lie."
She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round my neck.
"Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of you being angry," she said. "Promise not to be angry, and you shall know the very truth: I hate to hide it."
We sat down in the window–seat; I assured her I would not scold, whatever her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course; so she commenced—
"I've been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I've never missed going a day since you fell ill; except thrice before, and twice after you left your room. I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny every evening, and to put her back in the stable: you mustn't scold him either, mind. I was at the Heights by half–past six, and generally stayed till half–past eight, and then galloped home. It was not to amuse myself that I went: I was often wretched all the time. Now and then I was happy: once in a week perhaps. At first, I expected there would be sad work persuading you to let me keep my word to Linton: for I had engaged to call again next day, when we quitted him; but, as you stayed up–stairs on the morrow, I escaped that trouble. While Michael was refastening the lock of the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and told him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick, and couldn't come to the Grange; and how papa would object to my going: and then I negotiated with him about the pony. He is fond of reading, and he thinks of leaving soon to get married; so he offered, if I would lend him books out of the library, to do what I wished: but I preferred giving him my own, and that satisfied him better."
"On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits; and Zillah (that is their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire, and told us that, as Joseph was out at a prayer–meeting and Hareton Earnshaw was off with his dogs—robbing our woods of pheasants, as I heard afterwards—we might do what we liked. She brought me some warm wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly good–natured, and Linton sat in the arm–chair, and I in the little rocking chair on the hearth–stone, and we laughed and talked so merrily, and found so much to say: we planned where we would go, and what we would do in summer. I needn't repeat that, because you would call it silly."
"One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness: mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last, we agreed to try both, as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed each other and were friends."
"After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its smooth uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play in, if we removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us, and we'd have a game at blindman's–buff; she should try to catch us: you used to, you know, Ellen. He wouldn't: there was no pleasure in it, he said; but he consented to play at ball with me. We found two in a cupboard, among a heap of old toys, tops, and hoops, and battledores and shuttlecocks. One was marked C., and the other H.; I wished to have the C., because that stood for Catherine, and the H. might be for Heathcliff, his name; but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn't like it. I beat him constantly: and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to his chair. That night, though, he easily recovered his good humour: he was charmed with two or three pretty songs—your songs, Ellen; and when I was obliged to go, he begged and entreated me to come the following evening; and I promised. Minny and I went flying home as light as air; and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and my sweet, darling cousin, till morning."
"On the morrow I was sad; partly because you were poorly, and partly that I wished my father knew, and approved of my excursions: but it was beautiful moonlight after tea; and, as I rode on, the gloom cleared. I shall have another happy evening, I thought to myself; and what delights me more, my pretty Linton will. I trotted up their garden, and was turning round to the back, when that fellow Earnshaw met me, took my bridle, and bid me go in by the front entrance. He patted Minny's neck, and said she was a bonny beast, and appeared as if he wanted me to speak to him. I only told him to leave my horse alone, or else it would kick him. He answered in his vulgar accent, "It wouldn't do mitch hurt if it did;" and surveyed its legs with a smile. I was half inclined to make it try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said, with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation: "Miss Catherine! I can read yon, now."
"Wonderful," I exclaimed. "Pray let us hear you—you are grown clever!"
"He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name—"Hareton Earnshaw."
"And the figures?" I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came to a dead halt."
"I cannot tell them yet," he answered."
"Oh, you dunce!" I said, laughing heartily at his failure."
"The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join in my mirth: whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it really was, contempt. I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton, not him. He reddened—I saw that by the moonlight—dropped his hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified vanity. He imagined himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I suppose, because he could spell his own name; and was marvellously discomfited that I didn't think the same."
"Stop, Miss Catherine, dear!"—I interrupted. "I shall not scold, but I don't like your conduct there. If you had remembered that Hareton was your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would have felt how improper it was to behave in that way. At least, it was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished as Linton; and probably he did not learn merely to show off: you had made him ashamed of his ignorance before, I have no doubt; and he wished to remedy it and please you. To sneer at his imperfect attempt was very bad breeding. Had you been brought up in his circumstances, would you be less rude? He was as quick and as intelligent a child as ever you were; and I'm hurt that he should be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so unjustly."
"Well, Ellen, you won't cry about it, will you?" she exclaimed, surprised at my earnestness. "But wait, and you shall hear if he conned his A B C to please me; and if it were worth while being civil to the brute. I entered; Linton was lying on the settle, and half got up to welcome me."
"I'm ill to–night, Catherine, love," he said; "and you must have all the talk, and let me listen. Come, and sit by me. I was sure you wouldn't break your word, and I'll make you promise again, before you go."
"I knew now that I mustn't tease him, as he was ill; and I spoke softly and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way. I had brought some of my nicest books for him: he asked me to read a little of one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the door open: having gathered venom with reflection. He advanced direct to us, seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat."
"Get to thy own room!" he said, in a voice almost inarticulate with passion; and his face looked swelled and furious. "Take her there if she comes to see thee: thou shalln't keep me out of this. Begone wi' ye both!"
"He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing him into the kitchen; and he clenched his fist as I followed, seemingly longing to knock me down. I was afraid for a moment, and I let one volume fall; he kicked it after me, and shut us out. I heard a malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld that odious Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering."
"I wer sure he'd sarve ye out! He's a grand lad! He's getten t' raight sperrit in him! He knaws—ay, he knaws, as weel as I do, who sud be t' maister yonder—Ech, ech, ech! He made ye skift properly! Ech, ech, ech!"
"Where must we go?" I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old wretch's mockery."
"Linton was white and trembling. He was not pretty then, Ellen: oh, no! he looked frightful; for his thin face and large eyes were wrought into an expression of frantic, powerless fury. He grasped the handle of the door, and shook it: it was fastened inside."
"If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!—If you don't let me in, I'll kill you!" he rather shrieked than said. "Devil! devil!—I'll kill you—I'll kill you!"
Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again.
"Thear, that's t" father!" he cried. "That's father! We've allas summut o' either side in us. Niver heed, Hareton, lad—dunnut be "feard—he cannot get at thee!"
"I took hold of Linton's hands, and tried to pull him away; but he shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed. At last his cries were choked by a dreadful fit of coughing; blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell on the ground. I ran into the yard, sick with terror; and called for Zillah, as loud as I could. She soon heard me: she was milking the cows in a shed behind the barn, and hurrying from her work, she inquired what there was to do? I hadn't breath to explain; dragging her in, I looked about for Linton. Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief he had caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing up–stairs. Zillah and I ascended after him; but he stopped me at the top of the steps, and said I shouldn't go in: I must go home. I exclaimed that he had killed Linton, and I would enter. Joseph locked the door, and declared I should do "no sich stuff," and asked me whether I were "bahn to be as mad as him." I stood crying till the housekeeper reappeared. She affirmed he would be better in a bit, but he couldn't do with that shrieking and din; and she took me, and nearly carried me into the house."
"Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head! I sobbed and wept so that my eyes were almost blind; and the ruffian you have such sympathy with stood opposite: presuming every now and then to bid me "wisht," and denying that it was his fault; and, finally, frightened by my assertions that I would tell papa, and that he should be put in prison and hanged, he commenced blubbering himself, and hurried out to hide his cowardly agitation. Still, I was not rid of him: when at length they compelled me to depart, and I had got some hundred yards off the premises, he suddenly issued from the shadow of the road–side, and checked Minny and took hold of me."
"Miss Catherine, I'm ill grieved," he began, "but it's rayther too bad—"
"I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder me. He let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped home more than half out of my senses."
"I didn't bid you good–night that evening, and I didn't go to Wuthering Heights the next: I wished to go exceedingly; but I was strangely excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead, sometimes; and sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering Hareton. On the third day I took courage: at least, I couldn't bear longer suspense, and stole off once more. I went at five o'clock, and walked; fancying I might manage to creep into the house, and up to Linton's room, unobserved. However, the dogs gave notice of my approach. Zillah received me, and saying "the lad was mending nicely," showed me into a small, tidy, carpeted apartment, where, to my inexpressible joy, I beheld Linton laid on a little sofa, reading one of my books. But he would neither speak to me nor look at me, through a whole hour, Ellen: he has such an unhappy temper. And what quite confounded me, when he did open his mouth, it was to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the uproar, and Hareton was not to blame! Unable to reply, except passionately, I got up and walked from the room. He sent after me a faint "Catherine!" He did not reckon on being answered so: but I wouldn't turn back; and the morrow was the second day on which I stayed at home, nearly determined to visit him no more. But it was so miserable going to bed and getting up, and never hearing anything about him, that my resolution melted into air before it was properly formed. It had appeared wrong to take the journey once; now it seemed wrong to refrain. Michael came to ask if he must saddle Minny; I said "Yes," and considered myself doing a duty as she bore me over the hills. I was forced to pass the front windows to get to the court: it was no use trying to conceal my presence."
"Young master is in the house," said Zillah, as she saw me making for the parlour. I went in; Earnshaw was there also, but he quitted the room directly. Linton sat in the great arm–chair half asleep; walking up to the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly meaning it to be true—"
"As you don't like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose to hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last meeting: let us say good–bye; and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you have no wish to see me, and that he mustn't invent any more falsehoods on the subject."
"Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine," he answered. "You are so much happier than I am, you ought to be better. Papa talks enough of my defects, and shows enough scorn of me, to make it natural I should doubt myself. I doubt whether I am not altogether as worthless as he calls me, frequently; and then I feel so cross and bitter, I hate everybody! I am worthless, and bad in temper, and bad in spirit, almost always; and, if you choose, you may say good–bye: you'll get rid of an annoyance. Only, Catherine, do me this justice: believe that if I might be as sweet, and as kind, and as good as you are, I would be; as willingly, and more so, than as happy and as healthy. And believe that your kindness has made me love you deeper than if I deserved your love: and though I couldn't, and cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret it and repent it; and shall regret and repent it till I die!"
"I felt he spoke the truth; and I felt I must forgive him: and, though we should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again. We were reconciled; but we cried, both of us, the whole time I stayed: not entirely for sorrow; yet I was sorry Linton had that distorted nature. He'll never let his friends be at ease, and he'll never be at ease himself! I have always gone to his little parlour, since that night; because his father returned the day after."
"About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we were the first evening; the rest of my visits were dreary and troubled: now with his selfishness and spite, and now with his sufferings: but I've learned to endure the former with nearly as little resentment as the latter. Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids me: I have hardly seen him at all. Last Sunday, indeed, coming earlier than usual, I heard him abusing poor Linton cruelly for his conduct of the night before. I can't tell how he knew of it, unless he listened. Linton had certainly behaved provokingly: however, it was the business of nobody but me, and I interrupted Mr. Heathcliff's lecture by entering and telling him so. He burst into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view of the matter. Since then, I've told Linton he must whisper his bitter things. Now, Ellen, you have heard all. I can't be prevented from going to Wuthering Heights, except by inflicting misery on two people; whereas, if you'll only not tell papa, my going need disturb the tranquillity of none. You'll not tell, will you? It will be very heartless, if you do."
"I'll make up my mind on that point by to–morrow, Miss Catherine," I replied. "It requires some study; and so I'll leave you to your rest, and go think it over."
I thought it over aloud, in my master's presence; walking straight from her room to his, and relating the whole story: with the exception of her conversations with her cousin, and any mention of Hareton. Mr. Linton was alarmed and distressed, more than he would acknowledge to me. In the morning, Catherine learnt my betrayal of her confidence, and she learnt also that her secret visits were to end. In vain she wept and writhed against the interdict, and implored her father to have pity on Linton: all she got to comfort her was a promise that he would write and give him leave to come to the Grange when he pleased; but explaining that he must no longer expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights. Perhaps, had he been aware of his nephew's disposition and state of health, he would have seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation. |
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