Chapter 11

A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up
the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at
Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet,
such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of
George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death
of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and
by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and
umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by
sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four
o’clock A.M., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.
Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I
thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked
anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the “boots” placed for my
convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of
carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I
asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the
negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I
am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the
world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound
can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has
quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it;
but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-
an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.
“Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of the waiter who
answered the summons.
“Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He vanished, but reappeared
instantly—
“Is your name Eyre, Miss?”
“Yes.”
“Person here waiting for you.”
I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a man was
standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse
conveyance.
“This will be your luggage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly when he saw me,
pointing to my trunk in the passage.
“Yes.” He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in; before he
shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.

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“A matter of six miles.”
“How long shall we be before we get there?”
“Happen an hour and a half.”
He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our progress
was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near
the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant
conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
“I suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs.
Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine
people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except
this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on
with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer. At
Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs.
Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may
not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the
worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I
wonder?”
I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of
its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We
were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all
over the district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less
picturesque; more stirring, less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and
the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat
and said—
“You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.”
Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky,
and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside,
marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a
pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly
ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from
one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it
was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in.
“Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall
with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire
and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes
had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture
presented itself to my view.
A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-backed and old-
fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow’s cap, black
silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only
less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at
her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort.
A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there

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was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the
old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
“How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so
slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.”
“Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?” said I.
“Yes, you are right: do sit down.”
She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my
bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble.
“Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah,
make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the storeroom.”
And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered
them to the servant.
“Now, then, draw nearer to the fire,” she continued. “You’ve brought your luggage with
you, haven’t you, my dear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’ll see it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out.
“She treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a reception; I anticipated
only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of
governesses; but I must not exult too soon.”
She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two
from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then herself
handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of more attention
than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but
as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place, I
thought it better to take her civilities quietly.
“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, when I had partaken
of what she offered me.
“What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returned the good lady, approaching her
ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
“Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil.”
“Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?”
“No,—I have no family.”
I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was
connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions:
besides, I was sure to hear in time.
“I am so glad,” she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her
knee; “I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a
companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather
neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in
winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice

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girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are
only servants, and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep
them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter (it was a
very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a
creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February;
and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to
read to me sometimes; but I don’t think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it
confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make such a
difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came
and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be
quite gay.”
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a
little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as
agreeable as she anticipated.
“But I’ll not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is on the stroke of twelve now,
and you have been travelling all day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well
warmed, I’ll show you your bedroom. I’ve had the room next to mine prepared for you;
it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the large
front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary,
I never sleep in them myself.”
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long
journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from
the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from
the lock, she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase
window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom
doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill
and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space
and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small
dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed
leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide
hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of
my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I
was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt
down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I
rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which
seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that
night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly:
when I awoke it was broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay
blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the
bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals
have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me,
one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My
faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I
cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps
that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period.

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I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no article of attire that
was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was
not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on
the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want
of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes
wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall,
stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale,
and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these
regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had
a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very
smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit
of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do
respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at
least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that
I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I
gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I
remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and
a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case
was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything
appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to
grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the
threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned
groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the
front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though
considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: battlements round the
top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a
rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and
grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence,
and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once
explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty
as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living
world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a
seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A
little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these
hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a
knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to
the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking
what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that
lady appeared at the door.
“What! out already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went up to her, and was
received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
“How do you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very much.
“Yes,” she said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr.
Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least,

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visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the
proprietor.”
“Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?”
“The owner of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he was called
Rochester?”
Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard
his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be
acquainted by instinct.
“I thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.”
“To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeper—the
manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother’s side, or at
least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder
on the hill—and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester’s mother
was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the
connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an
ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more.”
“And the little girl—my pupil!”
“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He
intended to have her brought up in ——shire, I believe. Here she comes, with her
‘bonne,’ as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind
little widow was no great dame; but a dependent like myself. I did not like her the worse
for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and
me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the better—my
position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came
running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she
was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-
featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
“Good morning, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the lady who is to
teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She approached.
“C’est là ma gouvernante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who
answered—
“Mais oui, certainement.”
“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left
it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now
she can make shift to talk it a little: I don’t understand her, she mixes it so with French;
but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say.”
Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I
had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had
besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily—applying
myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the
pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and

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correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle
Adela. She came and shook hands with me when she heard that I was her governess;
and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she
replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me
some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering
fluently.
“Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can
talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands
her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in
a great ship with a chimney that smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and so
was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty
room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out
of mine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle—what is your name?”
“Eyre—Jane Eyre.”
“Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite
daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like
the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a
plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a
beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly
a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called
the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful
birds in it, that I fed with crumbs.”
“Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame
Pierrot.
“I wish,” continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two about her
parents: I wonder if she remembers them?”
“Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town
you spoke of?”
“I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me
to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see
mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked
it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?”
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her
accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee;
then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her
eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of
a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid;
desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves
to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her
demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her.
The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the
exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of
childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so.

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Adèle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of her age. This
achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you
some poetry.”
Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” She then
declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of
voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which
proved she had been carefully trained.
“Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked.
“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats;
parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me to raise my voice at the question.
Now shall I dance for you?”
“No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom
did you live then?”
“With Madame Frédéric and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing related
to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there.
Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes;
for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frédéric, and he was always kind to me
and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for he has
brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him.”
After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr.
Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were
locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open containing
everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes
of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had
considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and,
indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I
had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant
harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano,
quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used
to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much
at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when
the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed
to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use.
As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: “Your
morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said she. She was in a room the folding-
doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately
apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one
vast window rich in stained glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was
dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any
half so imposing.
“Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and
sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the
drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.”

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She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyrian-
dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I
thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the
view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir,
both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both
ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in
rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian
mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows
large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire.
“In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, no canvas
coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily.”
“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden
and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up,
and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in
readiness.”
“Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?”
“Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he expects to have
things managed in conformity to them.”
“Do you like him? Is he generally liked?”
“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this
neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind.”
“Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?”
“I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and
liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them.”
“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?”
“Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has
travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is
clever, but I never had much conversation with him.”
“In what way is he peculiar?”
“I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he
speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is
pleased or the contrary; you don’t thoroughly understand him, in short—at least, I
don’t: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master.”
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There are
people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and
describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged
to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr.
Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor—nothing more: she inquired
and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite
notion of his identity.
When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and
I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged
and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the

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third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity.
The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been
removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow
casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking,
with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the
Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more
antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced
embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All
these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a
shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the
day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds:
shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English
hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger
birds, and strangest human beings,—all which would have looked strange, indeed, by
the pallid gleam of moonlight.
“Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked.
“No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here:
one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its
haunt.”
“So I think: you have no ghost, then?”
“None that I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
“Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?”
“I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet
race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves
now.”
“Yes—‘after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where are you going now,
Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away.
“On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?” I followed still, up a very
narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the
roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests.
Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like
a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field,
wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path
visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the
gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day’s sun; the horizon
bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene
was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-
door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault
compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit
scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I
had been gazing with delight.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint of groping, found
the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I
lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of
the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and

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looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some
Bluebeard’s castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh,
struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound
ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very
low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely
chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence
the accents issued.
“Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs. “Did you
hear that loud laugh? Who is it?”
“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace Poole.”
“Did you hear it?” I again inquired.
“Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with
her; they are frequently noisy together.”
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.
“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural
a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of
ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season
favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me
I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.
The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between thirty and
forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition
less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” Grace curtseyed
silently and went in.
“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s work,” continued
the widow; “not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough.
By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?”
The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the light and cheerful
region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming—
“Mesdames, vous êtes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!”
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.