Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be
happy at Thornfield.
“Why not?” I asked myself. “What alienates him from the house? Will he
leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer
than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks.
If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent
spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will
seem!”
I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any
rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and
lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had
kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were
depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.
I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward
tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two.
Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had
swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I
said, “Who is there?” Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear.
All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the
kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up
to the threshold of Mr. Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there
myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down.
Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again
through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it
was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely
approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing
incident enough.
This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it
seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was
near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my
bedside—or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and
could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was
reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse
was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, “Who is
there?”
Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery
towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut
in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.
“Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?” thought I.
Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I
hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the
door with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside,
and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this
circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite
dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and
left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware
of a strong smell of burning.
Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr.
Rochester’s, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no
more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh:
in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round
the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour,
Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.
“Wake! wake!” I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned:
the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very
sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one
was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved
them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room,
brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God’s aid,
succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.
The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I
flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of
the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last.
Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him
fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of
water.
“Is there a flood?” he cried.
“No, sir,” I answered; “but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are
quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.”
“In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?” he
demanded. “What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the
room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?”
“I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven’s name, get up.
Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and
what it is.”
“There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two
minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes,
here is my dressing-gown. Now run!”
I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He
took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened
and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.
“What is it? and who did it?” he asked.
I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had
heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the
smoke,—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what
state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the
water I could lay hands on.
“What is it and who did it?” he asked
He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more
concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had
concluded.
“Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?” I asked.
“Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she
do? Let her sleep unmolested.”
“Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.”
“Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm
enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down
in the arm-chair: there,—I will put it on. Now place your feet on the
stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few
minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return;
be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don’t
move, remember, or call any one.”
He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very
softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible,
shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total
darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long
time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and
then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house.
I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester’s displeasure by disobeying
his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall,
and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. “I hope it is he,”
thought I, “and not something worse.”
He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. “I have found it all out,” said
he, setting his candle down on the washstand; “it is as I thought.”
“How, sir?”
He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the
ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar
tone—
“I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your
chamber door.”
“No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.”
“But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should
think, or something like it?”
“Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,—she
laughs in that way. She is a singular person.”
“Just so. Grace Poole—you have guessed it. She is, as you say,
singular—very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am
glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the
precise details of to-night’s incident. You are no talking fool: say
nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs” (pointing
to the bed): “and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on
the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:—in
two hours the servants will be up.”
“Good-night, then, sir,” said I, departing.
He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to
go.
“What!” he exclaimed, “are you quitting me already, and in that way?”
“You said I might go, sir.”
“But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of
acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry
fashion. Why, you have saved my life!—snatched me from a horrible and
excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual
strangers! At least shake hands.”
He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, then in
both his own.
“You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a
debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been
tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation:
but you: it is different;—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane.”
He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but
his voice was checked.
“Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation,
in the case.”
“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some
time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression
and smile did not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily)
“strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of
natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of
truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!”
Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.
“I am glad I happened to be awake,” I said: and then I was going.
“What! you _will_ go?”
“I am cold, sir.”
“Cold? Yes,—and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!” But he still
retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an
expedient.
“I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,” said I.
“Well, leave me:” he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.
I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I
was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble
rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild
waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a
freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards
the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy—a counteracting
breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist
delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as
soon as day dawned.
CHAPTER XVI
I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed
this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to
meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily
expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the
schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had
the impression that he was sure to visit it that day.
But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the
quiet course of Adèle’s studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard
some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester’s chamber, Mrs.
Fairfax’s voice, and Leah’s, and the cook’s—that is, John’s wife—and
even John’s own gruff tones. There were exclamations of “What a mercy
master was not burnt in his bed!” “It is always dangerous to keep a
candle lit at night.” “How providential that he had presence of mind to
think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is to be hoped
he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c.
To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to
rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I