Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel
and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a
wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she
thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the
library.
Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more
firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand.
“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said. He swallowed the
contents and returned it to me. “What are they doing, Jane?”
“Laughing and talking, sir.”
“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something
strange?”
“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.”
“And Mason?”
“He was laughing too.”
“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do,
Jane?”
“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.”
He half smiled. “But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at
me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then
dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?”
“I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with
you.”
“To comfort me?”
“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.”
“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?”
“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I
should care nothing about it.”
“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?”
“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence;
as you, I am sure, do.”
“Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in
his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in
here and then leave me.”
“Yes, sir.”
I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight
among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him
from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went
upstairs.
At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors
repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and
heard him say, “This way, Mason; this is your room.”
He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon
asleep.
CHAPTER XX
I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to
let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon,
which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course
to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me
through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the
dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk—silver-white and crystal
clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I half rose, and stretched my
arm to draw the curtain.
Good God! What a cry!
The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp,
a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed.
The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that
fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor
on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the
cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must
rest ere it could repeat the effort.
It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And
overhead—yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling—I now heard a
struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered
voice shouted—
“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly.
“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and
stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:—
“Rochester! Rochester! for God’s sake, come!”
A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery.
Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and
there was silence.
I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued
from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations,
terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one
looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and
ladies alike had quitted their beds; and “Oh! what is it?”—“Who is
hurt?”—“What has happened?”—“Fetch a light!”—“Is it fire?”—“Are there
robbers?”—“Where shall we run?” was demanded confusedly on all hands.
But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They
ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the
confusion was inextricable.
“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent. “I cannot find him
in his bed.”
“Here! here!” was shouted in return. “Be composed, all of you: I’m
coming.”
And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester
advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey.
One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss
Ingram.
“What awful event has taken place?” said she. “Speak! let us know the
worst at once!”
“But don’t pull me down or strangle me,” he replied: for the Misses
Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white
wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.
“All’s right!—all’s right!” he cried. “It’s a mere rehearsal of Much
Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.”
And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself
by an effort, he added—
“A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She’s an excitable,
nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or
something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now,
then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is
settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to
set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in
evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your
nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames” (to the dowagers),
“you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill
gallery any longer.”
And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to
get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did
not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as
unnoticed I had left it.
Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself
carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that
had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had
proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not
a servant’s dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and
that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention
framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for
emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out
over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not
what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry,
struggle, and call.
No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and
in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It
seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon
declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and
darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I
left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I
stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door.
“Am I wanted?” I asked.
“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s.
“Yes, sir.”
“And dressed?”
“Yes.”
“Come out, then, quietly.”
I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.
“I want you,” he said: “come this way: take your time, and make no
noise.”
My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a
cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the
dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and
stood at his side.
“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you any salts—volatile salts?”
“Yes.”
“Go back and fetch both.”
I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer,
and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his
hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock;
he paused, and addressed me again.
“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?”
“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.”
I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no
faintness.
“Just give me your hand,” he said: “it will not do to risk a fainting
fit.”
I put my fingers into his. “Warm and steady,” was his remark: he turned
the key and opened the door.
I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax
showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry
was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had
then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room
within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog
quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait
a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of
laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace
Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! _She_ then was there. He made some sort of
arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him:
he came out and closed the door behind him.
“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large
bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of
the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it,
dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant
back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I
recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face—the stranger, Mason:
I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in
blood.
“Hold the candle,” said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a
basin of water from the washstand: “Hold that,” said he. I obeyed. He
took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he
asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason
shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt
of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged
away blood, trickling fast down.
“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason.
“Pooh! No—a mere scratch. Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up! I’ll
fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by
morning, I hope. Jane,” he continued.
“Sir?”
“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an
hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it
returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that
stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to
him on any pretext—and—Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if
you speak to her: open your lips—agitate yourself—and I’ll not answer
for the consequences.”
Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear,
either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him.
Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded
to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying,
“Remember!—No conversation,” he left the room. I experienced a strange
feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating
step ceased to be heard.
Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic
cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and