第 三十二 章 · I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and
. I continued the labours 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 amongst them as amongst
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 amongst them not a few
examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of
excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill 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 amongst 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 amongst 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 favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out,
I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with
friendly smiles. To live amidst 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
sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of
this calm, this useful existence—after a day passed in honourable
exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading
contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams
many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the
stormy—dreams where, amidst 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 catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the
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 fervour, stronger than 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 gaily, 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
bind 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 parlours and the
peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once,
despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.
Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I
had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise:
she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly
selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely
spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; 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 naturæ_, she
affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous
history, if known, would make a delightful romance.
One evening, while, with her usual child-like 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 card-board,
and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring
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
grey-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 neighbourhood;
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 5th 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 palette 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 favoured. 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 colouring; 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 presume.”
“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 colour, 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 sweet 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 labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good
intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a
nectarous 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 humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood
silent. Amidst this hush the quartet 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 was
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, 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 sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate
in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, 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 colour, 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, the
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 honour 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
palette. 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 not 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, scrutinised 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.