She closed her lips.
“You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,” answered Georgiana. “Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence, and I know your spiteful hatred towards me, I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere, you could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects forever.” Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious.
True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed, but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
It was a wet and windy afternoon, Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint’s-day service at the new church—for in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist, no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers.
I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there almost unheeded, the very servants paid her but a remittent attention, the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful, but she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected, no nurse was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows. The fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously, “One lies there,” I thought, “who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit—now struggling to quit its material tenement—flit when at length released?”
In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her dying words—her faith—her doctrine of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered tones—still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father’s bosom—when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind, “Who is that?”
I knew Mrs Reed had not spoken for days, was she reviving? I went up to her.
“It is I, Aunt Reed.”
“Who—I?” was her answer. “Who are you?” looking at me with surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. “You are quite a stranger to me—where is Bessie?”
“She is at the lodge, aunt.”
“Aunt,” she repeated. “Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons and yet I know you—that face, and the eyes and forehead, are quiet familiar to me, you are like—why, you are like Jane Eyre!”
I said nothing, I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity.
“Yet,” said she, “I am afraid it is a mistake, my thoughts deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists, besides, in eight years she must be so changed.” I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be, and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.
“I am very ill, I know,” she said ere long. “I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die, what we think little of in health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?”
I assured her we were alone.
“Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child; the other—” she stopped. “After all, it is of no great importance, perhaps,” she murmured to herself, “and then I may get better and to humble myself so to her is painful.”
She made an effort to alter her position, but failed, her face changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation—the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
“Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me, I had better tell her.Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there.”
I obeyed her directions. “Read the letter,” she said.
It was short, and thus conceived—
“Madam—Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave.I am, Madam, etcetera, etcetera.
John Eyre, Madeira.
It was dated three years back.
“Why did I never hear of this?” I asked.
“Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane—the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind, I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice. Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!”
“Dear Mrs Reed,” said I, as I offered her the draught she required, “think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language, I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day.”
She heeded nothing of what I said, but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus—
“I tell you I could not forget it and I took my revenge, for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him. I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead, she had died of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please, write and contradict my assertion—expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my torment, my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.”
“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness”
“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand, how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.”
“My disposition is not so bad as you think. I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now, kiss me, aunt.”
I approached my cheek to her lips, she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine, the feeble fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.
“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you have my full and free forgiveness, ask now for God’s, and be at peace.”
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind, living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half an hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity, but she gave none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally, at twelve o’clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her, Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed’s once robust and active frame, rigid and still, her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain, nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for her woes—not my loss—and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.
Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she observed—
“With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age, her life was shortened by trouble.” And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant, as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mr Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of absence, yet a month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the funeral. I longed to see Mr Rochester, and indeed, thoughts of him, and naughty, wicked dreams had provided solace during the long visit. I continued to explore, but I would admit that I wanted more of my master’s touches.
Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister’s interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza, from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle and I thought to myself, “If you and I were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party. I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone. I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.”
At last I saw Georgiana off, but now it was Eliza’s turn to request me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with anyone. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence.
One morning she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is some difference between living with such a one as you and with Georgiana, you perform your own part in life and burden no one. Tomorrow,” she continued, “I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle—a nunnery you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system, if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.”
I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought, “much good may it do you!”
When we parted, she said, “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre. I wish you well, you have some sense.”
I then returned, “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza, but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t much care.”
“You are in the right,” said she and with these words we each went our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her fortune.
How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know. I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable, no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried.
My journey seemed tedious—very tedious, fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn, fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs Reed in her last moments. I saw her disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana. I beheld one the cynosure of a ballroom, the other the inmate of a convent cell and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of—scattered these thoughts. Night gave them quite another turn, laid down on my traveller’s bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.
I was going back to Thornfield, but how long was I to stay there? Not long, of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs Fairfax in the interim of my absence. The party at the hall was dispersed. Mr Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage. She said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her, but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it, was my mental comment. I don’t doubt it.
The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night, in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road and Mr Rochester looked on with his arms folded—smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me. I told myself I didn’t feel a stab in the heart; for Mr Rochester never promised anything. We had spent a few moments together—after some emotional duress and that had led to something unspeakably spectacular—and it meant nothing to him. He had the experience of the world and a number of years on me. I was not foolish. I did not try to make myself anything more than another woman in a line of conquests. I was the governess, and though I did understand him better than Miss Ingram ever should, a man such as he needed to make a political match. Love, what of it? It meant nothing, less than nothing; the mere ramblings of an unfettered mind.
I had not notified to Mrs Fairfax the exact day of my return, for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself and very quietly, after leaving my box in the ostler’s care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six o’clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield, a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.
It was not a bright or splendid summer evening,
though fair and soft. The haymakers were at work all along the road and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future, its blue—where blue was visible—was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm, no watery gleam chilled it—it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness.
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