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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.
Adele and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily
requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in
an apartment upstairs, 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.
Adele 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 downstairs, 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 Edouard Fairfax de Rochester,'
as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), 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 amongst it a little box in
whose contents she had an interest.
'Et cela doit signifier,' said she, 'qu'il y aura la dedans un
cadeau pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur
a parle de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si
elle n'etait 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 schoolroom.
At dark I allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run
downstairs; 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 snowflakes
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 remembered 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 grey, which, in my Lowood
notions of the toilette, 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 downstairs. 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 mantelpiece;
basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot- Adele
knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester,
his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adele 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 recognised 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 harmonised 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, etc., with assiduous celerity. I
and Adele went to the table; but the master did not leave his
couch.
'Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?' said Mrs. Fairfax to me;
'Adele might perhaps spill it.'
I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking
the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, 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 Adele: she demands
a "cadeau," clamorously, the moment she sees me: you
beat about the bush.'
'Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele 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 Adele,
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 Adele was leading me by the hand round the room, showing
me the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres.
We obeyed, as in duty bound; Adele 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-?'
'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 Adele.'
'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 came 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 school-girl; perhaps rather better
than some, but not well.'
I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued-
'Adele 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 recognise 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.
Adele 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 scrutinised 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 Adele;- you' (glancing at me) 'resume your seat,
and answer my questions. I perceive those pictures were done by
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-colours. The first represented clouds
low and livid, rolling over a swollen 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
palette 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 slanting 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 vapour; 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
winter 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 towards
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, amidst 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 daresay 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 favoured my inclination to apply.'
'And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?'
'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 realise.'
'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 Adele
sit up so long? Take her to bed!'
Adele 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 towards 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 Adele
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 because 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.
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