Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
“No—nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a
week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they
are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all
that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate.
Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr.
Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is
a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would
not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in
their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his
wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look.”
“Are there ladies at the Leas?”
“There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young
ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram,
most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or
seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a
Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the
dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit
up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of
the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of
the evening.”
“You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?”
“Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was
Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to
hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to
come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw
a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of
them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram
was certainly the queen.”
“And what was she like?”
“Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive
complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr.
Rochester’s: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then
she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly
arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the
glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an
amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her
breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below
her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it
contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.”
“She was greatly admired, of course?”
“Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments.
She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the
piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet.”
“Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.”
“Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.”
“And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?”
“A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to
listen to her;—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but
Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably
good.”
“And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?”
“It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large
fortunes. Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the
eldest son came in for everything almost.”
“But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to
her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?”
“Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr.
Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.”
“What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.”
“True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an
idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since
you began tea.”
“No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?”
I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr.
Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the
conversation was turned into another channel.
When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into
my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring
back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s
boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.
Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes,
wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the
general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight
past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way, a
plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and
rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:—
That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of
life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet
lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
“_You_,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? _You_ gifted with the
power of pleasing him? _You_ of importance to him in any way? Go! your
folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens
of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man
of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid
dupe!—Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to
yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?—Cover your face
and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind
puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed
senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her
superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in
all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned
and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and
responded to, must lead, _ignis-fatuus_-like, into miry wilds whence
there is no extrication.
“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass
before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without
softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing
irregularity; write under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected,
poor, and plain.’
“Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your
drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest
tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate
carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest
shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs.
Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental
eye;—What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!—no
sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall
the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let
the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit
neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire,
aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call
it ‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.’
“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks
well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, ‘Mr.
Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to
strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this
indigent and insignificant plebeian?’”
“I’ll do it,” I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew
calm, and fell asleep.
I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in
crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory
miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face
enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was
as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task:
it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and
fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my
heart.
Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of
wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit.
Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent
calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been
unequal to maintain, even externally.
CHAPTER XVII
A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and
still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if
he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the
Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to
come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt
and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange
chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to
experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits,
and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to
order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I
cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester’s movements a matter
in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled
myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just
said—
“You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to
receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be
grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your
duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only
tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don’t make him
the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth.
He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting
to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a
gift is not wanted and would be despised.”
I went on with my day’s business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague
suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit
Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and
pondering conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not
think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could.
Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post
brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.
“It is from the master,” said she, as she looked at the direction. “Now
I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not.”
And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking
my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that
circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand
shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into
my saucer, I did not choose to consider.
“Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being
busy enough now: for a little while at least,” said Mrs. Fairfax, still
holding the note before her spectacles.
Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of
Adèle’s pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to
another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly—
“Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?”
“Indeed he is—in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and
not alone either. I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas
are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to
be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I
am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from
wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the
gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it.” And Mrs.
Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence
operations.