Chapter 34

It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general holiday
approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be
barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to
give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual
ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars
liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their
affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in
their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass in future
that I did not visit them, and give them an hour’s teaching in their school.
Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before
me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of
special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable,
modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British
peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best
taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have
seen paysannes and Bäuerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse,
and besotted, compared with my Morton girls.
“Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” asked Mr. Rivers,
when they were gone. “Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in
your day and generation give pleasure?”
“Doubtless.”
“And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of
regenerating your race be well spent?”
“Yes,” I said; “but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as well
as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now; don’t recall either my mind
or body to the school; I am out of it and disposed for full holiday.”
He looked grave. “What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you
going to do?”
“To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get
somebody else to wait on you.”
“Do you want her?”
“Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I
want to have everything in order against their arrival.”
“I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so:
Hannah shall go with you.”
“Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom key: I will give you
the key of my cottage in the morning.”

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He took it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he; “I don’t quite understand your light-
heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a
substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in
life have you now?”
“My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the
expression?)—to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up
with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to
arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall
go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the
two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah
and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of
Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other
culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like
you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness
for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal
of a welcome when they come.”
St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.
“It is all very well for the present,” said he; “but seriously, I trust that when the first
flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and
household joys.”
“The best things the world has!” I interrupted.
“No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of
rest; do not turn slothful.”
“I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.”
“Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months’ grace I allow you for the full enjoyment
of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of
relationship; but then, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton,
and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I
hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.”
I looked at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are almost wicked to talk so.
I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To
what end?”
“To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping;
and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you
closely and anxiously—I warn you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate
fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling
so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate
cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?”
“Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and
I will be happy. Goodbye!”
Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to
see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy—how I could
brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse
confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had

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made. I had previously taken a journey to S—— to purchase some new furniture: my
cousins having given me carte blanche to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum
having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left
much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing
again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the
smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the
piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and
curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and
bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered
the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I
refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the
passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as
complete a model of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen
of wintry waste and desert dreariness without.
The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere dusk
fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were
dressed, and all was in readiness.
St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything
was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial,
going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the
kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the
hearth, he asked, “If I was at last satisfied with housemaid’s work?” I answered by
inviting him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours. With
some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I
opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone
through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in
so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved
aspect of his abode.
This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old
associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case: no doubt in a somewhat
crest-fallen tone.
“Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every
association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it
was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement
of this very room?—By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?”
I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his
accustomed window recess, he began to read it.
Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had
spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and
amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally,
he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would
never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead,
still and pale as a white stone—at his fine lineaments fixed in study—I comprehended
all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to
be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I
agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should
despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to

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stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his
happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—
Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast
bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous
column, gloomy and out of place.
“This parlour is not his sphere,” I reflected: “the Himalayan ridge or Caffre bush, even
the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him better. Well may he eschew the
calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate—they cannot
develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger—where courage is
proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked—that he will speak and move, the
leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He
is right to choose a missionary’s career—I see it now.”
“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Hannah, throwing open the parlour door. At
the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling
of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the
wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped
out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary’s soft
cheek, then with Diana’s flowing curls. They laughed—kissed me—then Hannah: patted
Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in
the affirmative, hastened into the house.
They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the
frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful firelight.
While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this
moment he advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at
once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a
while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him
in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.
I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders
respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted with the
renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets,
and rich tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the
pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had
done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home.
Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative
and comment, that their fluency covered St. John’s taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to
see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The
event of the day—that is, the return of Diana and Mary—pleased him; but the
accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception irked
him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night’s
enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with
the intimation that “a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see
his mother, who was drawing away.”
“Where does she live, Hannah?”
“Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way.”
“Tell him I will go.”

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“I’m sure, sir, you had better not. It’s the worst road to travel after dark that can be:
there’s no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a bitter night—the keenest wind
you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.”
But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one
murmur, he departed. It was then nine o’clock: he did not return till midnight. Starved
and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than when he set out. He had
performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and
was on better terms with himself.
I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week: we
took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The
air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and
Mary’s spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and
from noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original,
had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything
else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the
house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in
visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.
One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked
him, “If his plans were yet unchanged.”
“Unchanged and unchangeable,” was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his
departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year.
“And Rosamond Oliver?” suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips
involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing
to recall them. St. John had a book in his hand—it was his unsocial custom to read at
meals—he closed it, and looked up.
“Rosamond Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of the best
connected and most estimable residents in S——, grandson and heir to Sir Frederic
Granby: I had the intelligence from her father yesterday.”
His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as
glass.
“The match must have been got up hastily,” said Diana: “they cannot have known each
other long.”
“But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S——. But where there are
no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connection is in every point
desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S—— Place, which Sir
Frederic gives up to them, can be refitted for their reception.”
The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire if
the event distressed him: but he seemed so little to need sympathy, that, so far from
venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had
already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve was again
frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of
treating me like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us,
which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was
acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the
distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village

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schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his
confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity.
Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from
the desk over which he was stooping, and said—
“You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.”
Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment’s
hesitation I answered—
“But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have
cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?”
“I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be called upon to
contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I
thank God for it!” So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence.
As our mutual happiness (i.e., Diana’s, Mary’s, and mine) settled into a quieter character,
and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St. John stayed more at home: he
sat with us in the same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana
pursued a course of encyclopædic reading she had (to my awe and amazement)
undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of
some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans.
Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but
that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and
wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious
intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it
returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too, at the
punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of
small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled
when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his
sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and
encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements.
“Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she can bear a
mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us. Her
constitution is both sound and elastic;—better calculated to endure variations of
climate than many more robust.”
And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I
never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all
occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.
One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold. His
sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his
crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look
his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How
long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so
keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in
the room with something uncanny.
“Jane, what are you doing?”
“Learning German.”

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“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.”
“You are not in earnest?”
“In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.”
He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at
present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it
would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over
the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for
some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I
could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favour? I should not,
perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his
departure.
St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him,
either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented. When Diana
and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother:
she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded
them to such a step. He answered quietly—
“I know it.”
I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me
to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified
his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my
liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I
could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate
instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully
aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence
every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell.
When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my
servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.
One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-
night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave
me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (she was not painfully
controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed—
“St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat her as such: you
should kiss her too.”
She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably
confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head; his Greek
face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he
kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my
ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be
experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn
the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a
little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the
ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it,
seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.
As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more
that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their

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original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural
vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly
to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to mould my
irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes
the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own.
Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy
enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at
its source—the evil of suspense.
Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place
and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour
sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a
name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to
know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-
entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my
bedroom each night to brood over it.
In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will, I had
inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present residence and state of health;
but, as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then
wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with
certainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was
astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away,
and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the
keenest anxiety.
I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope
followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded,
flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain
expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed.
A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana tried
to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the sea-side. This St.
John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life
was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies,
he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring
their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him—I could not
resist him.
One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by
a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter
for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the long-looked for tidings
were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on
business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over
the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again.
St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me: words
were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising
her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, clear,
sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he
question me as to its cause; he only said—

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“We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.” And while I smothered
the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk, and looking
like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis
in a patient’s malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something
about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in
completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said—
“Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.”
“I will call Diana and Mary.”
“No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things;
go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you
in a moment.”
I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with
positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and
determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of
bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present
circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed
careful obedience to St. John’s directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the wild
track of the glen, side by side with him.
The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and
rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with past
spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and
sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf,
mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and
spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the
glen, towards its head, wound to their very core.
“Let us rest here,” said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks,
guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still
a little farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and
crag for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh for
the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for
silence.
I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down the hollow; his
glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven
which coloured it: he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He
seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to
something.
“And I shall see it again,” he said aloud, “in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and
again in a more remote hour—when another slumber overcomes me—on the shore of a
darker stream!”
Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot’s passion for his fatherland! He sat
down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past,
he recommenced—
“Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the
20th of June.”

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“God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,” I answered.
“Yes,” said he, “there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible Master. I am
not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control of
my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems
strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,—to join in
the same enterprise.”
“All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the
strong.”
“I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as are worthy of the
work, and competent to accomplish it.”
“Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.”
“You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and exhort them to
the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given—to speak
Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of
His chosen.”
“If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to inform
them of it?”
I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I trembled to hear
some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell.
“And what does your heart say?” demanded St. John.
“My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, struck and thrilled.
“Then I must speak for it,” continued the deep, relentless voice. “Jane, come with me to
India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer.”
The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard a summons from
Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced, “Come over
and help us!” But I was no apostle,—I could not behold the herald,—I could not receive
his call.
“Oh, St. John!” I cried, “have some mercy!”
I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither
mercy nor remorse. He continued—
“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but mental
endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A
missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my
pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.”
“I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said.
He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he
leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest, and fixed his
countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a
stock of patience to last him to its close—resolved, however, that that close should be
conquest for him.
“Humility, Jane,” said he, “is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you say right that you
are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed

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himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I
acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal
vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as well as mighty; and while He
has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless
stores of His providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me,
Jane—trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not doubt but it will
bear the weight of your human weakness.”
“I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours.”
“There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you your task from
hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to moment. This I could do in
the beginning: soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself,
and would not require my help.”
“But my powers—where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing
speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling—no life
quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how
much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear
fettered in its depths—the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot
accomplish!”
“I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met: I have
made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and
what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform well,
punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you
could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In the calm
with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of
Demas:—lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you
cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the
three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame
and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a
study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it interested me; in
the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging
energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge
the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested,
faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust
yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper
amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.”
My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step. Shut
my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which had
seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so
hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under
his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to think,
before I again hazarded a reply.
“Very willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw
himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.
“I can do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge that,” I
meditated,—“that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existence to be long
protracted under an Indian sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time

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came to die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me.
The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty
land—Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me?
My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from
day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might
reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to
replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man
can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best
calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I
must say, Yes—and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to
India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between leaving England for
India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear to my
vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I shall satisfy him—to the
finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. If I do go with him—
if I do make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar—
heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will
show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can
work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.
“Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one dreadful item. It is—
that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband’s heart for me than that
frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes
me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would
never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into practice his
plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring,
endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and
know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every
endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would
be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him—not as his
wife: I will tell him so.”
I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to
me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me.
“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.”
“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.”
“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let us continue as
such: you and I had better not marry.”
He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were my real sister
it would be different: I should take you, and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union
must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles
oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your
strong sense will guide you.”
I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did
not love each other as man and wife should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to
marry. I said so. “St. John,” I returned, “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so
let us continue.”
“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: “it would not
do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember—you have said that.”

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“Conditionally.”
“Well—well. To the main point—the departure with me from England, the co-operation
with me in my future labours—you do not object. You have already as good as put your
hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep
in view—how the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your
complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one
purpose: that of fulfilling with effect—with power—the mission of your great Master.
To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother—that is a loose tie—but a husband. I,
too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole
helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.”
I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on my limbs.
“Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.”
“One fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the
insignificant private individual—the mere man, with the man’s selfish senses—I wish to
mate: it is the missionary.”
“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not myself: that
would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain
them.”
“You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation?
Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God I advocate: it is under His
standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be
entire.”
“Oh! I will give my heart to God,” I said. “You do not want it.”
I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the
tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had
silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in
awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I
could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the
analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I
comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath,
and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil
fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I
felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal—one with whom I might
argue—one whom, if I saw good, I might resist.
He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward
glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and
keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to me!” it seemed to say. “What does this
signify?”
“Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long; “one of which we
may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you
say you will serve your heart to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man,
and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth
will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever
furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by
our physical and mental union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of

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permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over
all minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all scruple about the
degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal inclination—you will hasten to
enter into that union at once.”
“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but
strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding but not open; at his
eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and
fancied myself in idea his wife. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his comrade, all
would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns,
in Asian deserts with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion
and vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his
ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man: profoundly esteem the
one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in
this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind
would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved
feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses
in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing
there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured
warrior-march trample down: but as his wife—at his side always, and always
restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to
compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame
consumed vital after vital—this would be unendurable.
“St. John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
“Well?” he answered icily.
“I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife;
I cannot marry you and become part of you.”
“A part of me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the whole bargain is
void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless
she be married to me? How can we be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes,
sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?”
“Very well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either
your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself.”
“It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such: to attempt it
would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest, though you have a
man’s vigorous brain, you have a woman’s heart and—it would not do.”
“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a woman’s heart, but
not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade’s constancy; a fellow-
soldier’s frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission
to his hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.”
“It is what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I want. And there are
obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane, you would not repent marrying
me—be certain of that; we must be married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and
undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even
in your eyes.”

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“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him,
leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St.
John, and I scorn you when you offer it.”
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was
incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could command his
countenance thoroughly.
“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I think I have done and
uttered nothing to deserve scorn.”
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
“Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak
so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance—a
topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us.
If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin,
abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it.”
“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my
great end: but I shall urge you no further at present. To-morrow, I leave home for
Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be
absent a fortnight—take that space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if
you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a noble
career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit
yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case
you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than
infidels!”
He had done. Turning from me, he once more
“Looked to river, looked to hill.”
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy to hear them
uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt
towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met
resistance where it expected submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible
judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to
sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it
was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so
long a space for reflection and repentance.
That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even to shake
hands with me, but left the room in silence. I—who, though I had no love, had much
friendship for him—was hurt by the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started
to my eyes.
“I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,” said Diana, “during your walk on the
moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you—he will make
it up.”
I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than
dignified; and I ran after him—he stood at the foot of the stairs.
“Good-night, St. John,” said I.
“Good-night, Jane,” he replied calmly.

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“Then shake hands,” I added.
What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply displeased by
what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor tears move him. No happy
reconciliation was to be had with him—no cheering smile or generous word: but still
the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he
answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that
he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended.
And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down.