Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (52 page)

“She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can do,” answered Diana for me; “and you know, St. John, she has no choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you.”

“I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,” I answered.

“Right,” said Mr. St. John, quite coolly.  “If such is your spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way.”

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.  I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my present strength would permit.

CHAPTER XXX

The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them.  In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes.  I could join with Diana and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me.  There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time — the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.

I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced.  They loved their sequestered home.  I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs — all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly — and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom — found a charm both potent and permanent.  They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling — to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs: — they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment.  I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth.  I saw the fascination of the locality.  I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep — on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag.  These details were just to me what they were to them — so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure.  The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them — wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs.

Indoors we agreed equally well.  They were both more accomplished and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had trodden before me.  I devoured the books they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day.  Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly.

If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.  Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous.  In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension.  I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana’s feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched.  Diana offered to teach me German.  I liked to learn of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less.  Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection — of the strongest kind — was the result.  They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service.  My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them.  Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made.  Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.

As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him.  One reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish.

No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father’s old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty — I scarcely know in which light he regarded it.  Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate.  He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful —

“And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?”

Diana and Mary’s general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation.

But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature.  Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist.  Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye.

I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters.  He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence — never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield.

Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind.  I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton.  I wish I could describe that sermon: but it is past my power.  I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me.

It began calm — and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language.  This grew to force — compressed, condensed, controlled.  The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were softened.  Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines — election, predestination, reprobation — were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.  When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me — I know not whether equally so to others — that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment — where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations.  I was sure St. John Rivers — pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was — had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium — regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.

Meantime a month was gone.  Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependants, and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman.  Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind.  One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess — which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study — and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry — for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his — when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.

Looking up as I drew near — “You have a question to ask of me?” he said.

“Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake?”

“I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy here — as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure — I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.”

“And they will go in three days now?” I said.

“Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up.”

I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: his look denoted abstraction from me and my business.  I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me.

“What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers?  I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it.”

“Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept.”

He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue.  I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble.

“You need be in no hurry to hear,” he said: “let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest.  Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame.  I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front.  I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependant’s crust among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native country — not only for life, but in death.  Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’”

St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of glance.  He resumed —

“And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity. 
You
may even think it degrading — for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but
I
consider that no service degrades which can better our race.  I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him — the scantier the meed his toil brings — the higher the honour.  His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles — their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself.”

“Well?” I said, as he again paused — “proceed.”

He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page.  The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations.

“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing — the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.”

“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more.

“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is, — how trivial — how cramping.  I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master.  I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement.  Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress.  I established one for boys: I mean now to open a second school for girls.  I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house.  Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish — Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley.  The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person.  Will you be this mistress?”