Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
“Is there ony country where they talk i’ that way?” asked the old
woman, looking up from her knitting.
“Yes, Hannah—a far larger country than England, where they talk in no
other way.”
“Well, for sure case, I knawn’t how they can understand t’ one t’other:
and if either o’ ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?”
“We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all—for we
are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don’t speak German, and
we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.”
“And what good does it do you?”
“We mean to teach it some time—or at least the elements, as they say;
and then we shall get more money than we do now.”
“Varry like: but give ower studying; ye’ve done enough for to-night.”
“I think we have: at least I’m tired. Mary, are you?”
“Mortally: after all, it’s tough work fagging away at a language with
no master but a lexicon.”
“It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious
Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.”
“Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little
gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you
have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?”
The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage:
soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.
“Ah, childer!” said she, “it fair troubles me to go into yond’ room
now: it looks so lonesome wi’ the chair empty and set back in a
corner.”
She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked
sad now.
“But he is in a better place,” continued Hannah: “we shouldn’t wish him
here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had.”
“You say he never mentioned us?” inquired one of the ladies.
“He hadn’t time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He
had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and
when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o’ ye to be sent for,
he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his
head the next day—that is, a fortnight sin’—and he went to sleep and
niver wakened: he wor a’most stark when your brother went into t’
chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that’s t’ last o’ t’ old stock—for
ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them ’at’s gone; for
all your mother wor mich i’ your way, and a’most as book-learned. She
wor the pictur’ o’ ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father.”
I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for
such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair
complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of
distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker
than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing
it; Mary’s pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana’s
duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck
ten.
“Ye’ll want your supper, I am sure,” observed Hannah; “and so will Mr.
St. John when he comes in.”
And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed
about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so
intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited
in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched
position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than
ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to
touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make them
believe in the truth of my wants and woes—to induce them to vouchsafe a
rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it
hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah
opened.
“What do you want?” she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she
surveyed me by the light of the candle she held.
“May I speak to your mistresses?” I said.
“You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come
from?”
“I am a stranger.”
“What is your business here at this hour?”
“I want a night’s shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of
bread to eat.”
Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah’s face. “I’ll
give you a piece of bread,” she said, after a pause; “but we can’t take
in a vagrant to lodge. It isn’t likely.”
“Do let me speak to your mistresses.”
“No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about
now; it looks very ill.”
“But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?”
“Oh, I’ll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don’t
do wrong, that’s all. Here is a penny; now go—”
“A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don’t
shut the door:—oh, don’t, for God’s sake!”
“I must; the rain is driving in—”
“Tell the young ladies. Let me see them—”
“Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn’t
make such a noise. Move off.”
“But I must die if I am turned away.”
“Not you. I’m fear’d you have some ill plans agate, that bring you
about folk’s houses at this time o’ night. If you’ve any
followers—housebreakers or such like—anywhere near, you may tell them
we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs,
and guns.” Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to
and bolted it within.
This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true
despair—rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another
step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned—I wrung my
hands—I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last
hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation—this banishment
from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude
was gone—at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to
regain.
“I can but die,” I said, “and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His
will in silence.”
These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my
misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain
there—dumb and still.
“All men must die,” said a voice quite close at hand; “but all are not
condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would
be if you perished here of want.”
“Who or what speaks?” I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and
incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was
near—what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented
me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed
to the door.
“Is it you, Mr. St. John?” cried Hannah.
“Yes—yes; open quickly.”
“Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come
in—your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad
folks about. There has been a beggar-woman—I declare she is not gone
yet!—laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!”
“Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your
duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and
listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case—I must at
least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the
house.”
Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman
With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean,
bright kitchen—on the very hearth—trembling, sickening; conscious of an
aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two
ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing
at me.
“St. John, who is it?” I heard one ask.
“I cannot tell: I found her at the door,” was the reply.
“She does look white,” said Hannah.
“As white as clay or death,” was responded. “She will fall: let her
sit.”
And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still
possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.
“Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she
is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!”
“A mere spectre!”
“Is she ill, or only famished?”
“Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of
bread.”
Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and
the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and
put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it,
and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too,
the same balm-like emotion spoke: “Try to eat.”
“Yes—try,” repeated Mary gently; and Mary’s hand removed my sodden
bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at
first, eagerly soon.
“Not too much at first—restrain her,” said the brother; “she has had
enough.” And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.
“A little more, St. John—look at the avidity in her eyes.”
“No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now—ask her her
name.”
I felt I could speak, and I answered—“My name is Jane Elliott.” Anxious
as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_.
“And where do you live? Where are your friends?”
I was silent.
“Can we send for any one you know?”
I shook my head.
“What account can you give of yourself?”
Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and
once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer
outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off
the mendicant—to resume my natural manner and character. I began once
more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account—which at
present I was far too weak to render—I said after a brief pause—
“Sir, I can give you no details to-night.”
“But what, then,” said he, “do you expect me to do for you?”
“Nothing,” I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana
took the word—
“Do you mean,” she asked, “that we have now given you what aid you
require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?”
I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct
both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her
compassionate gaze with a smile, I said—“I will trust you. If I were a
masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your
hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me
as you like; but excuse me from much discourse—my breath is short—I
feel a spasm when I speak.” All three surveyed me, and all three were
silent.
“Hannah,” said Mr. St. John, at last, “let her sit there at present,
and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder
of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and
talk the matter over.”
They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned—I could not tell
which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the
genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere
long, with the servant’s aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my
dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I
thanked God—experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of
grateful joy—and slept.
CHAPTER XXIX
The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very
dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but
few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small
room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on
it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been
almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time—of the change
from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one
entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could