Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
“With pleasure,” I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at
the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then
on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only
ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with
all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board,
and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring
it; and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit
another day.
She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself
accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and
grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright
flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud
personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond’s
portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of
it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at
Vale Hall.
I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant
evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and
pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he
entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong
terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he
only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place,
and would soon quit it for one more suitable.
“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a
high family, papa.”
I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in
the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with
great respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood;
that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once
belonged to them; that even now he considered the representative of
that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He
accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have
formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a
valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would throw no
obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr. Oliver
evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name, and
sacred profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune.
It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after
helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of
a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured
floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself
neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.
The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got
my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier
occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was
finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery
to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft
curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the
lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these
nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting
St. John Rivers.
“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I
hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel
lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up
wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and
he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine
productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those
days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era
are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or
repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon
gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their
existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day.
Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph,
and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius
banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the
thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without
their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell
of your own meanness.
While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for
“Marmion” it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall
figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at
him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his
heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had
then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination
to do him some good, if I could.
“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself
too far: locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses,
imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about
this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make
him talk.”
I said first, “Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.” But he answered, as he always
did, that he could not stay. “Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand
if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude
is at least as bad for you as it is for me. I’ll try if I cannot
discover the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in
that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of
sympathy.”
“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly.
“Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.”
“You did, Mr. Rivers.”
He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me
astonished. “Oh, that is nothing yet,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean
to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I’m prepared to go to
considerable lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and
distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again,” and I
rose and placed it in his hand.
“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear colouring; very
graceful and correct drawing.”
“Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it
like?”
Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.”
“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will
promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very
picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I
don’t wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would
deem worthless.”
He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer
he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured;
“the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect.
It smiles!”
“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting?
Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India,
would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or
would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and
distress?”
He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute,
disturbed: he again surveyed the picture.
“That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be
judicious or wise is another question.”
Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that
her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my
views than St. John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to
advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the
possessor of Mr. Oliver’s large fortune, he might do as much good with
it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to
waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered—
“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were
to take to yourself the original at once.”
By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table
before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over
it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I
saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed
unapproachable—to hear it thus freely handled—was beginning to be felt
by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often
really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more
than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and
to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their
souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations.
“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and
her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather
thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself
and her. You ought to marry her.”
“_Does_ she like me?” he asked.
“Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you
continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so
often.”
“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very: go on for another
quarter of an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it
upon the table to measure the time.
“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably
preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to
fetter your heart?”
“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am
doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and
overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and
with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good
intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a
nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering
them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at
Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet: she is talking to me with
her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has
copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine—I am
hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say
nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the
time I marked pass in peace.”
I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood
silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid
the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.
“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion.
I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck
voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was
burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste:
her promises are hollow—her offers false: I see and know all this.”
I gazed at him in wonder.
“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so
wildly—with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object
of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience
at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make
me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should
discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months’
rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.”
“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating.
“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her
charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they
are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate
in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female
apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!”
“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.”