Jane Slayre (33 page)

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provide a valuable service in restoring souls to those who had lost their way? Or in stopping fiends from turning more to their kind?

I wasn't sure I had it in me. All I wanted, in my dreams, was to live at Mr. Rochester's side, as man and wife. But I did not live in my dreams, and the real world was pointing me in a new direction, if only I knew what it was.

I had not notified Mrs. Fairfax of the exact day of my return for I did not wish a carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself. Upon arrival at Millcote, I left my box in the hostler's care to be delivered to Thornfield Hall later. I slipped away from the George Inn about six o'clock of a June evening and took the old road to Thornfield, a road that lay chiefly through fields and was now little frequented.

It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft. The haymakers were at work all along the road.

"Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," I said to myself as I walked along. "And little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you. But you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."

But sense would not stop me from dreaming and urging me on my way. "Hasten! Be with him while you may. But a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him forever!"

I began to run.

When I reached the fields near Thornfield, the labourers were just quitting their work and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders. I had but a field or two to traverse, then I would cross the road and reach the gates. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path. I saw the narrow stile with stone steps. And there--was I dreaming?--I saw Mr. Rochester sitting, a book and a pencil in his hand. He was writing.

For a moment I was beyond my own mastery. I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him or lose my voice or the power of motion. I thought to turn around, take the other way to

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the house, to avoid making a fool of myself. It would not do to cry and lose my faculties upon greeting him.

Too late. He saw me. He looked up, started as if seeing a ghost, and then began to wave.

"Hallo!" he cried. He put up his book and his pencil. "There you are! Come on!"

I kept going, somehow, though I don't know in what fashion. I lost awareness of my movements, my actions.

"And this is Jane Slayre?" he said as I neared. "Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes, just one of your tricks not to send for a carriage and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, to steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a fairy. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?"

"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."

"A true Janian reply! Good angels, be my guard! She comes from the other world--from the abode of people who are dead, she tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf. Truant! Absent from me a month, and forgetting me, I'll be sworn!"

My heart raced and my breath came faster. He had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would that it were my home!

He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired if he had not been to London.

"Yes. I suppose you found that out by second sight."

"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

"And did she inform you what I went to do?"

"Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."

"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly, and whether she won't look like a queen leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, my fairy, can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"

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"It would be past the power of magic, sir," I said, delighted at teasing him again, then added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed. To such you are handsome enough, or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."

Mr. Rochester smiled at me, outshining the warmth of the summer sun when it reached its highest point in the sky.

"Pass, Jane," said he, making room for me to cross the stile. "Go up home, and stay your weary, little, wandering feet at a friend's threshold."

All I had now to do was to obey him in silence. No need for me to speak and risk my emotions further. But a strange impulse took hold and forced me to turn around once I'd safely passed him.

"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you, and wherever you are is my home--my only home."

I turned again and walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adele was half-wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me
"Bonsoir"
with glee.

A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thorn-field Hall. Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided. Her answer was always in the negative. Once, she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home, but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.

One midsummer eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop to sleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.

It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four. The sky was

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a deep blue, nearly purple, with blazes of jewel red where the sun dipped down to set. I walked awhile on the pavement, but a subtle, well-known scent--that of a cigar--stole from some window. I saw the library casement open a handbreadth. I knew I might be watched thence, so I went apart into the orchard.

No nook in the grounds was more sheltered and more Edenic. It was full of trees and abloom with flowers. A winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating at a giant horse-chestnut tree circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen, but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step was once more stayed by a warning fragrance.

I knew it well--it was Mr. Rochester's cigar. I looked around and listened. I saw trees laden with ripening fruit. I heard a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off. No moving form was visible, no coming step audible, but that perfume increased. I made for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I saw Mr. Rochester entering. I stepped aside into the ivy recess, where I'd sat with him the morning after the attack on Mr. Mason. He would not stay long, I reasoned. He would soon return whence he came, and if I sat still, he would never see me.

But eventide was as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive. He strolled on through the fruit trees. A great moth went humming by me. It stopped on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot. He bent to examine it.

"Now, he has his back towards me," I said to myself. "Perhaps, if I walked softly, I could slip away unnoticed."

I hadn't even stood before his voice stopped me. "Jane, come and look at this fellow. He reminds me rather of a West Indian insect. There! He has flown."

The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also, but Mr. Rochester followed me.

"Turn back?" he said when we reached the wicket. "On so lovely

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a night, it is a shame to sit in the house. Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"

"Yes, sir."

He walked to one side of the horse chestnut. I, to the other.

"You must have become in some degree attached to the house." He peeked through a branch.

"I am attached to it, indeed."

"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele, too. And even for simple dame Fairfax?"

"Yes, sir. In different ways, I have an affection for both."

"You would be sorry to part with them?"

"Yes."

"Pity!" He sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events in this life. No sooner have you got settled in a pleasant place than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on."

"Must I move on, sir? Must I leave Thornfield?"

"I believe you must, Jane." A few wisps of hair had strayed loose from my bun. He reached out and smoothed them back. "I am sorry, Jane, but I believe indeed you must."

This was a blow, but I did not let it prostrate me.

"Well, sir"--I straightened up--"I shall be ready when the order to march comes."

"I must give it tonight."

"Then, you
are
going to be married, sir?"

"I have every hope that it will happen soon. Adele must go to school, and you, Miss Slayre, must get a new situation."

"Of course, sir. I will advertise immediately."

"No need to advertise. I have already, through the esteemed Lady Ingram, heard of a place that she thinks will suit. It is to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Derby O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You would like Ireland, I think. They're such warmhearted people there, they say."

"It is a long way off, sir."

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"From what, Jane?"

"From England and from Thornfield; and--"

"Well?"

"From you, sir." The tears I had struggled against since he first said I must go began to fall. I narrowly avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart. "It is a long way."

"It is, to be sure. Probably why the old lady recommended it. She might have noticed the way I sometimes look at you when you're sitting in your nook watching over our party. Or the way I look mournful when you're not there. Have you noticed, Jane?"

"The way you look when I'm not there? How could I, sir?"

"No." He laughed and drew closer. "The way I sometimes look at you. As if you're the only woman in the room. I daresay it would be vexing to the woman who fancies herself the object of my affections, and her mother, who is eager to secure the match, or at least my fortune, for her daughter. We have been good friends, Jane. Have we not?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to each other. Here is the chestnut tree. Come, we will sit on the bench at its roots in peace tonight, though we might never more be destined to sit together." He seated us, making sure we sat close.

Too close. I could feel him breathing. I fancied I could feel the beating of his heart in time with my own. But then, I was a fanciful girl at times.

"It is a long way to Ireland, Jane, but I can't do better in finding you a position. Can you imagine a way it could be helped?"

Well, by him not marrying Blanche Ingram, to be sure, but I couldn't find my voice to speak.

"I think we are much alike in some regards, Jane. I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you--especially when you are

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near me, as now. It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame." He made a gesture as if to indicate the string running from his ribs to mine. My breath caught. "And if that boisterous channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will snap. And then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you, you'd forget me."

"I could never forget you. I--" I almost confessed how desperately I loved him, but I stopped the words in time.

"Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen." It was just like him to sense my distress and create a distraction to give me time to compose myself.

But I could not regain my composure! In listening, I sobbed convulsively. No longer could I repress my feelings. I blubbered something about how I wished I had never been born, never come to Thornfield.

"Because you are sorry to leave it?"

I was overcome. It all came out in a flood. "I grieve to leave Thornfield! I love Thornfield. I love it because I have lived in it a full and delightful life. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have known you, Mr. Rochester, and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you forever. I see the necessity of departure, and it is like looking on the necessity of death."

I struggled to catch my breath, to calm down. I had said it. There was no going back.

"Where do you see the necessity?" he asked suddenly.

"Where? You, sir, have placed it before me. You're taking a bride."

"What bride? I have no bride!"

"But you will have."