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the daylight ca. i rose at dawn. i busied self for an hour or two with arrangingthings inchaer, drawers, and wardrobe, in the order wherein i should wish to leave theduring a brief absence. meanti, i heard st. john quit his roo he stopped atdoor: i feared he would knoo, but a slip of paper assed uhe door. i took it up. it bore these words—
“you lefttoo suddenly last night. had you stayed but a little longer, you would have laid your hand on the christian’s cross and the angel’s . i shall expect your clear decision when i return this day fht. meanti, ray that you enter not into tetation: the spirit, i trust, is willing, but the flesh, i see, is weak. i shall pray for you hourl.99lib.y.—yours, st. john.”
“my spirit,” i answered ntally, “is willing to do what is right; andflesh, i hope, is strong enough to aplish the will of heaven, when ohat will is distinctly known to . at any rate, it shall be strong enough to searquire—to grope an outlet frothis cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty.”
it was the first of june; yet the was overcast and chilly: rai fast oncasent. i heard the front-door open, and st. john pass out. looking through the window, i saw hitraverse the gardeook the way over the sty ors in the dire of whitcross—there he would et thach.
“in a few re hours i shall sueed you in that trackusin,” thought i: “i too have aeet at whitcross. i too have so to see and ask after in england, before i depart for ever.”
it wanted yet two hours of breakfast-ti. i filled the interval in walking softly aboutroo and p the visitation which had givenplans their prese. i recalled that inward sensation i had experienced: for uld recall it, with all its unspeakable stran&a;a;lt;rk&a;a;gt;9９lib?&a;a;lt;/rk&a;a;gt;geness. i recalled the voice i had heard; again i questioned whe ca, as vainly as before: it seed i iernal world. i asked was it a re nervous iression—a delusion? uld not ceive or believe: it was re like an inspiration. the wondrous shock of feeling had e like the earthquake which shook the foundations of paul and silas’s prison; it had opehe doors of the soul’s cell and loosed its bands—it had wake out of its sleep, whe sprang treling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a y startled ear, and inquaki and throughspirit, whieither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the suess of one effort it had been privileged to ke, indepe of the curous body.
“ere ny days,” i said, as i ternatedsings, “i will know sothing of hiwhose voice seed last night to suon . letters have proved of no avail—personal inquiry shall replace the”
at breakfast i annouo diana and mary that i was going a journey, and should be absent at least four days.
“alone, jahey asked.
“yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whoi had for so ti been uneasy.”
they ght have said, as i have no doubt they thought, that they had believedto be without any friends save the for, indeed, i had often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they abstained froent, except that diana askedif i was sure i was well enough to travel. i looked very pale, she observed. i replied, that nothing ailedsave ay of nd, which i hoped soon to alleviate.
it was easy to kefurther arras; for i was troubled with no inquiries—no surses. having once explaio thethat uld not now be explicit aboutplans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in the sileh which i pursued the ae the privilege of free a i should under silar circutances have rded the
i left moor house at three o’clock p., and soon after four i stood at the foot of the sign-post of whitcross, waiting the arrival of thach which was to taketo distant thornfield. adst the silence of those solitary roads a hills, i heard it approach froa great dista was the sa vehicle whence, a year ago, i had alighted one suer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless! it stopped as i beed. i entered—n&a;a;lt;q&a;a;gt;..&a;a;lt;/q&a;a;gt;ot now obliged to part withwhole fortune as the price of its aodation. once re on the road to thornfield, i felt like the ssenger-pigeon flying ho.
it was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. i had set out frowhitcross on a tuesday afternoon, and early on the sueeding thursday thach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the dst of sery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills (how ld of feature and verdant of hue pared with the stern north-midland ors of morton!) teye like the lis of a once faliar face. yes, i khe character of this landscape: i was sure we were nearbourne.
“how far is thornfield hall frohere?” i asked of the ostler.
“just two les, ’a across the fields.”
“my journey is closed,” i thought to self. i got out of thach, gave a box i had into the ostler’s charge, to be kept till i called for it; paidfare; satisfied the an, and was going: the brightening day glead on the sign of the inn, and i read in gilt letters, “the rochester ar.” my heart leapt up: i was already onster’s very lands. it fell again: the thought struck it:—
“your ster hielf y be beyond the british el, fht you know: and then, if he is at thornfield hall, towards which you hasten, who besides hiis there? his lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do with hi you dare not speak to hior seek his presence. you have lost your labour—you had better go no farther,” urged the nitor. “ask infortion of the people at the inn; theygive you all you seek: theysolve your doubts at once. go up to that n, and inquire if mr. rochester be at ho.”
the suggestion was sensible, a uld not force self to a it. i so dreaded a reply that would crushwith despair. to prolong doubt was to prolong hope. i ght yet once re see the hall uhe ray of her star. there was the stile before —the very fields through which i had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury trag and sc , on the i fled frothornfield: ere i well knew whaurse i had resolved to take, i was in the dst of the how fast i walked! how i ran sotis! how i looked forward to catch the first view of the well-known woods! with what feelings i weled sirees i knew, and faliar glises of adow and hill between the
at last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud g broke the stillness. strange delight inspired : on i hastened. another field crossed—a lahreaded—and there were thurtyard walls—the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. “my first view of it shall be in front,” i deterned, “where its bold battlents will strike the eye nobly at once, and where isister’s very window: perhaps he will be standing at it—he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavent in front. could i but see hi—but a nt! surely, in that case, i should not be so d as to run to hi i ot tell—i anot certain. and if i did—what then? god bless hi what then? who would be hurt byonce re tasting the life his glanbsp; give ? i rave: perhaps at this nt he is watg the sun rise over the pyrenees, or oideless sea of the south.”
i haasted along the lower wall of the orchard—turs ahere was a gate just there, opening into the adow, between two stone pillars ed by stone balls. frobehind one pillar uld peep round quietly at the full front of the nsion. i advancedhead with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroowindow-blinds were yet drawn up: battlents, windows, long front—all frothis sheltered station were atan&a;a;lt;s&a;a;gt;?&a;a;lt;/s&a;a;gt;d.
the crows sailing overhead perhaps watchedwhile i took this survey. i wonder what they thought. they st have sidered i was very careful and tid at first, and that gradually i grew very bold and reckless. a peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure fro niche and a straying out into the adow; and a sudden stop full in front of the great nsion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it. “what affectation of diffidence was this at first?” they ght have dended; “what stupid regardlessness now?”
hear an illustration, reader.
a lover finds his stress asleep on a ssy bank; he wishes to catch a glise of her fair face without waking her. he steals softly over the grass, careful to ke no sound; he pauses—fang she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. all is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty—war and bloong, and lovely, i. how hurried was their first glance! but how they fix! how he starts! how he suddenly and vehently clasps in both ar the forhe dared not, a nt siouch with his finger! how he calls aloud a na, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! he thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound heutter—by any vent heke. he thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.
i looked with tirous joy towards a stately house: i saw a blaed ruin.
wer behind a gate-post, io peep up at chaer lattices, fearing life was astir behind the o listen for doors opening—to fancy steps on the pavent or the gravel-walk! the lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. the front was, as i had once seen it in a drea but a well- like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows: no roof, no battlents, no eys—all had crashed in.
and there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a loneso wild. no wohat letters addressed to people here had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle. the griblaess of the stoold by what fate the hall had fallen—by flagration: but how kindled? what story beloo this disaster? what loss, besides rtar and rble and wood-work had followed upon it? had life been wrecked as well as property? if so, whose? dreadful question: there was no oo a—not even du sign, te token.
in wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, i gathered evidehat the calaty was not of late ourrence. winter snows, i thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter raien in at those hollow casents; for, adst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there betweeones and fallen rafters. and oh! where anti was the hapless owner of this wreck? in what land? under what auspices? my eye involuntarily wao the grey church tower he gates, and i asked, “is he with dar de rochester, sharing the shelter of his narrow rble house?”
so answer st be had to these questions. uld find it nowhere but at the inn, and thither, ere long, i returhe host hielf broughtbreakfast into the parlour. i requested hito shut the door and sit down: i had so questions to ask hi but when he plied, i scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had i of the possible answers. ahe spectacle of desolation i had just left preparedin a asure for a tale of sery. the host was a respectable-looking, ddle-aged n.
“you know thornfield hall, ourse?” i o say at last.
“yes, ’a i lived there once.”
“did you?” not inti, i thought: you are a strao .
“i was the late mr. rochester’s.. butler,” he added.
the late! i seeto have received, with full force, the blow i had been trying to evade.
“the late!” gasped. “is he dead?”
“i an the preselen, mr. edward’s father,” he explained. i breathed again:blood resud its flow. fully assured by these words that mr. edward— mr. rochester (god bless hi wherever he was!)—was at least alive: was, in short, “the preselen.” gladdening words! it seed uld hear all that was to e—whatever the disclosures ght be—with parative tranquillity. since he was not in the grave, uld bear, i thought, to learn that he was at the antipodes.
“is mr. rochester living at thornfield hall now?” i asked, knowing, ourse, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the direct question as to where he really was.
“no, ’aoh, no! no one is living there. i suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last autu,—thornfield hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about harvest-ti. a dreadful calaty! su iense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furnituruld be saved. the fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived fromite, the building was one ss of fla. it was a terrible spectacle: i wit self.”
“at dead of night!” i ttered. yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at thornfield. “was it known how it inated?” i dended.
“they guessed, ’a they guessed. indeed, i should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. you are not perhaps aware,” he tinued, edging his chair a little he table, and speaking low, “that there was a lady—a—a lunatic, kept in the house?”
“i have heard sothing of it.”
“she was kept in very close fi, ’a people even for so years was not absolutely certain of her existeno one saw her: they only knew by ruur that such a person was at the hall; and who or what she was it was difficult to jecture. they said mr. edward had brought her froabroad, and so believed she had been his stress. but a queer thing happened a year since—a very queer thing.”
i feared now to hearown story. i endeavoured to recall hito the in fact.
“and this lady?”
“this lady, ’a” he answered, “turned out to be mr. rochester’s wife! the dvery was brought about ira way. there was a young lady, a governess at the hall, that mr. rochester fell in—”
“but the fire,” i suggested.
“i’ing to that, ’athat mr. edward fell in love with. the servants say they never saw anybody solove as he was: he was after her tinually. they used to watch hiservants will, you know, ’aa store on her past everything: for all, nobody but hithought her so very handso. she was a little sll thing, they say, alst like a child. i never saw her self; but i’ve heard leah, the house-id, tell of her. leah liked her well enough. mr. rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, whelen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched. well, he would rry her.”
“you shall tellthis part of the story ai,” i said; “but now i have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. was it suspected that this lunatic, mrs. rochester, had any hand in it?”
“you’ve hit it, ’a it’s quite certain that it was her, and nobody but her, that set it going. she had a won to take care of her called mrs. poole—an able won in her line, arustworthy, but for one fault—a fault on to a deal of thenurses and trons—she kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a drop over-ch. it is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was dangerous; for when mrs. poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the d lady, who was as ing as a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her chaer, and go roang about the house, doing any wild schief that ca into her head. they say she had nearly burnt her husband in his bed once: but i don’t know about that. however, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the roonbsp; her own, and the down to a lower storey, and de her way to the chaer that had been the governess’s—(she was like as if she knew sohow how tters had gone on, and had a spite at her)—and she kihe bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. the governess had run away two nths before; and for all mr. rochester sought her as if she had been the st precious thing he had in the world, he neveuld hear a word of her; and he grew savage—quite savage on his disappoi: he never was a wild n, but he got dangerous after he lost her. he would be alooo. he sent mrs. fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did it handsoly, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and she deserved it—she was a very good won. miss adèle, a ward he had, ut to school. he broke off acquaintah all the gentry, and shut hielf up like a hert at the hall.”
“what! did he not leave england?”
“leave england? bless you, no! he would not cross the door-stones of the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses— which it isopinion he had; for a re spirited, bolder, keener gentlen than he was before that dge of a governess crossed hi you never saw, ’a he was not a n given to wine, or cards, , as so are, and he was not so very handso; but he had a d a will of his own, if ever n had. i knew hifroa boy, you see: and forpart, i have often wished that miss eyre had been sunk in the sea before she ca to thornfield hall.”
“then mr. rochester was at ho when the fire broke out?”
“yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped thedown hielf, a back to get his d wife out of her cell. and then they called out to hithat she was on the roof, where she was standing, waving her ar, above the battlents, and shouting out till theuld hear her a le off: i saw her and heard her withown eyes. she was a big won, and had long black hair: wuld see it streang against the flas as she stood. i witnessed, and several re witnessed, mr. rochester asd through the sky-light on to the roof; we heard hicall ‘bertha!’ we saw hiapproach her; and then, ’a she yelled and gave a spring, and thenute she lay sshed on the pavent.”
“dead?”
“dead! ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered.”
“good god!”
“you y well say so, ’a it was frightful!”
he shuddered.
“and afterwards?” i urged.
“well, ’a afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are only so bits of walls standing now.”
“were any other lives lost?”
“no—perhaps it would have beeer if there had.”
“what do you an?”
“poor mr. edward!” he ejaculated, “i little thought ever to have seen it! so say it was a just judgnt on hifor keeping his first rriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living: but i pity hi forpart.”
“you said he was alive?” i exclaid.
“yes, yes: he is alive; but ny think he had better he dead.”
“why? how?” my blood was again runninld. “where is he?” i dended. “is he in england?”
“ay—ay—he’s in england; he ’t get out of england, i fancy—he’s a fixture now.”
what agony was this! and the n seed resolved to protract it.
“he is stone-blind,” he said at last. “yes, he is stone-blind, is mr. edward.”
i had dreaded worse. i had dreaded he was d. i suth to ask what had caused this calaty.
“it was all his own ce, and a body y say, his kindness, in a way, ’a he wouldn’t leave the house till every one else was out before hi as he ca down the great staircase at last, after mrs. rochester had flung herself frothe battlents, there was a great crash—all fell. he was taken out frouhe ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beahad fallen in such a way as to protect hipartly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that mr. carter, the surgeon, had to autate it directly. the other eye inflad: he lost the sight of that also. he is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple.”
“where is he? where does he now live?”
“at ferndean, a nor-house on a farhe has, about thirty les off: quite a desolate spot.”
“who is with hi”
“old john and his wife: he would have none else. he is quite broken down, they say.”
“have you any sort of veyance?”
“we have a chaise, ’a a very handso chaise.”
“let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boydriveto ferndean before dark this day, i’ll pay both you and hitwice the hire you usually dend.”
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