Jane Eyre: An Autobiography
finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations.
If I _do_ go with him—if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will
make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the
entire victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will
show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never
suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little
grudging.
“Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one
dreadful item. It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of
a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which
the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would
a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never
grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into
practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from
him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he
would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent?
Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a
sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I
will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him—not as his
wife: I will tell him so.”
I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column;
his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to
his feet and approached me.
“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.”
“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.”
“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let
us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.”
He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you
were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek
no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed
by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves
to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your
strong sense will guide you.”
I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to
the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and
therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I
returned, “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us
continue.”
“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination:
“it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India:
remember—you have said that.”
“Conditionally.”
“Well—well. To the main point—the departure with me from England, the
co-operation with me in my future labours—you do not object. You have
already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent
to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view—how the work you
have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests,
feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one
purpose: that of fulfilling with effect—with power—the mission of your
great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother—that
is a loose tie—but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister
might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can
influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.”
I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on
my limbs.
“Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.”
“One fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell
you it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with
the man’s selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.”
“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not
myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For
them he has no use: I retain them.”
“You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half
an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of
God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept
on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.”
“Oh! I will give my heart to God,” I said. “_You_ do not want it.”
I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed
sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the
feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now,
because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had
held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could
not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this
conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I
saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting
there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form
before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from
his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these
qualities, I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an
equal—one with whom I might argue—one whom, if I saw good, I might
resist.
He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently
risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me,
expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastic,
and sarcastic to _me!_” it seemed to say. “What does this signify?”
“Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long;
“one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I
trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart
to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it
on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on
earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do
at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be
given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in
marriage: the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity
to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all
minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all
scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal
inclination—you will hasten to enter into that union at once.”
“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in
their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his
brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and
searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied
myself in idea _his wife_. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his
comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that
capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that
office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour;
accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his
ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man:
profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should
suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body
would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be
free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural
unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness.
There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which
he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which
his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march
trample down: but as his wife—at his side always, and always
restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature
continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry,
though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—_this_ would be
unendurable.
“St. John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.
“Well?” he answered icily.
“I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary,
but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you.”
“A part of me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the
whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with
me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we
be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage
tribes—and unwed?”
“Very well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances, quite as well as
if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like
yourself.”
“It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as
such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both.
And for the rest, though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a
woman’s heart and—it would not do.”
“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a
woman’s heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a
comrade’s constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity,
fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission to his
hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.”
“It is what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I
want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane,
you would not repent marrying me—be certain of that; we _must_ be
married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of
love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your
eyes.”
“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and
stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the
counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when
you offer it.”
He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so.
Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell:
he could command his countenance thoroughly.
“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I
think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.”
I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.
“Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have
been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on
which our natures are at variance—a topic we should never discuss: the
very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality
were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin,
abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it.”
“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which
can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present.
To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to
whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight—take
that space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you
reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens
to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to
be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease
and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered
with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!”
He had done. Turning from me, he once more
“Looked to river, looked to hill.”
But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy
to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in
his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an
austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected
submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has
detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to
sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into
obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with