Conclusion
Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were
alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-
house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said—
“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.” The housekeeper and her
husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any
time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of
having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a
torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with
which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes
hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John’s knives also had rest from
the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only—
“Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!”
A short time after she pursued—“I seed you go out with the master, but I didn’t know
you were gone to church to be wed;” and she basted away. John, when I turned to him,
was grinning from ear to ear.
“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said: “I knew what Mr. Edward” (John was an old
servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he
often gave him his Christian name)—“I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was
certain he would not wait long neither: and he’s done right, for aught I know. I wish you
joy, Miss!” and he politely pulled his forelock.
“Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.” I put into his hand a
five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of
that sanctum some time after, I caught the words—
“She’ll happen do better for him nor ony o’ t’ grand ladies.” And again, “If she ben’t one
o’ th’ handsomest, she’s noan faâl and varry good-natured; and i’ his een she’s fair
beautiful, onybody may see that.”
I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had done: fully
explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly.
Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then
she would come and see me.
“She had better not wait till then, Jane,” said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to
him; “if she does, she will be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our life long: its
beams will only fade over your grave or mine.”
How St. John received the news, I don’t know: he never answered the letter in which I
communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning
Mr. Rochester’s name or alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though
very serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence
ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in
the world, and only mind earthly things.
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You have not quite forgotten little Adèle, have you, reader? I had not; I soon asked and
obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at the school where he had placed
her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin:
she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its
course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with me. I meant to
become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and
cares were now required by another—my husband needed them all. So I sought out a
school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit of my visiting
her often, and bringing her home sometimes.
I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort: she
soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her
studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her
French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging
companion: docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful attention to me
and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to
offer her.
My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married life, and one
brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this
narrative, and I have done.
I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I
love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can
express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever
nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his
flesh.
I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any more than we
each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently,
we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay
as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more
animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his
confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is
the result.
Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that
circumstance that drew us so very near—that knit us so very close: for I was then his
vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of
his eye.
He saw nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his
behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of
the landscape before us; of the weather round us—and impressing by sound on his ear
what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never
did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished
to be done.
And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad—
because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation.
He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I
loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.
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One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he
came and bent over me, and said—“Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your
neck?”
I had a gold watch-chain: I answered “Yes.”
“And have you a pale blue dress on?”
I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding
one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was sure of it.
He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually
recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or
write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a
blank to him—the earth no longer a void.
When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his
own eyes, as they once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with
a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy.
My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we most love are
happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both married: alternately, once every year,
they come to see us, and we go to see them. Diana’s husband is a captain in the navy, a
gallant officer and a good man. Mary’s is a clergyman, a college friend of her brother’s,
and, from his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. Both Captain
Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved by them.
As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He entered on the path he had
marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never
wrought amidst rocks and dangers.
Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he
clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of
creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be
ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim
convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks
but for Christ, when he says—
“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow
me.”
His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of
those who are redeemed from the earth—who stand without fault before the throne of
God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and
faithful.
St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil,
and the toil draws near its close: his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I
received from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine
joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger’s
hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at
length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St.
John’s last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will
be sure, his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this—
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“My Master,” he says, “has forewarned me. Daily He announces more distinctly,—‘Surely
I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond,—‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’”
