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.
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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
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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.
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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.”
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“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?”
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“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.”
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“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!”
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“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.
