Kabanata Kabanata 34 · It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of

. 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 for ever 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 bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of

cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair,

table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go

near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room;

and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are

expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs,

sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes,

chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other

culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the

uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an

absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next

Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome

when they come.”

St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.

“It is all very well for the present,” said he; “but seriously, I trust

that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little

higher than domestic endearments and household joys.”

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

“No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt

to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful.”

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

“Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months’ grace I allow you for

the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with

this late-found charm of relationship; but _then_, I hope you will

begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and

the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope

your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.”

I looked at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are

almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen,

and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?”

“To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to

your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict

account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of

that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you

throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so

tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an

adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do

you hear, Jane?”

“Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause

to be happy, and I _will_ be happy. Goodbye!”

Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she

was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house

turned topsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook.

And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was

delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had

made. I had previously taken a journey to 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

parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and

crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the

stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model

of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen

of wintry waste and desert dreariness without.

The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark,

and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs 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 labours. 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 upstairs and downstairs, 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-bye, 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 conducting 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 parlour 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 tasked—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

parlour 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 lit. 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

soft 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 cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought

in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from

the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave

each one 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 parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.

I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give

hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me.

They were delighted with the renovation and decorations 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 fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. 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 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 encyclopædic 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 unfavourable, 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 on me because he saw

I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this

favour? 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 know 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 bedtime, 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 frolicsome humour (_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 towards 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 afterwards, 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 ascendancy 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, amidst these

changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with

me, because it was not a vapour 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 re-entered 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 parlour: Diana was practising her music in the

drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, 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 towards 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 track, 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, towards 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 farther, 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 coloured 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 20th 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-labourer.”

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 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

labour, 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 groundwork 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

labours.”

“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,

labour 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 learnt 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 recognised a soul that revelled in

the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability 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 the 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 amongst Indian women,

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.

He 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. 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 farthest 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 towards 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 not 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

co-operation with me in my future labours—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 serve 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 endeavour; 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 vigour;

accommodate quietly to his masterhood; 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

unenslaved 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 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 be married to me? How can we

be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst 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 was 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 for ever 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

“Looked to river, looked to hill.”

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 towards 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

sympathise: 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.

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.