Bab Bab 38 · —CONCLUSION

. —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 forelock.

“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 explaining 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 honeymoon, 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

honeymoon will shine our life long: 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

blest—blest 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 round

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 of

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?”

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 now

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 amidst rocks and dangers.

Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he

labours 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 Greatheart, 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!’”