“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.”

I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had.  It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview.  Something of masquerade I suspected.  I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features.  But my mind had been running on Grace Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her.  I had never thought of Mr. Rochester.

“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about?  What does that grave smile signify?”

“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir.  I have your permission to retire now, I suppose?”

“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are doing.”

“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.”

“Sit down!—Let me hear what they said about me.”

“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock.  Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this morning?”

“A stranger!—no; who can it be?  I expected no one; is he gone?”

“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself here till you returned.”

“The devil he did!  Did he give his name?”

“His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.”

Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair.  As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.

“Mason!—the West Indies!” he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to enounce its single words; “Mason!—the West Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly seemed to know what he was doing.

“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired.

“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!”  He staggered.

“Oh, lean on me, sir.”

“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.”

“Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.”

He sat down, and made me sit beside him.  Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look.

“My little friend!” said he, “I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me.”

“Can I help you, sir?—I’d give my life to serve you.”

“Jane, if aid is wanted, I’ll seek it at your hands; I promise you that.”

“Thank you, sir.  Tell me what to do,—I’ll try, at least, to do it.”

“Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing.”

I went.  I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,—the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands.  Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and animated.  Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them.  I filled a wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library.

Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern.  He took the glass from my hand.

“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said.  He swallowed the contents and returned it to me.  “What are they doing, Jane?”

“Laughing and talking, sir.”

“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something strange?”

“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.”

“And Mason?”

“He was laughing too.”

“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, Jane?”

“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.”

He half smiled.  “But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off and left me one by one, what then?  Would you go with them?”

“I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you.”

“To comfort me?”

“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.”

“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?”

“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing about it.”

“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?”

“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do.”

“Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here and then leave me.”

“Yes, sir.”

I did his behest.  The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them.  I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs.

At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and heard him say, “This way, Mason; this is your room.”

He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease.  I was soon asleep.

CHAPTER XX

I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my window-blind.  The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me.  Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk—silver-white and crystal clear.  It was beautiful, but too solemn; I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain.

Good God!  What a cry!

The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.

My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed.  The cry died, and was not renewed.  Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie.  The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort.

It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead.  And overhead—yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling—I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted—

“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly.

“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:—

“Rochester!  Rochester! for God’s sake, come!”

A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery.  Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there was silence.

I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment.  The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled.  Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and “Oh! what is it?”—“Who is hurt?”—“What has happened?”—“Fetch a light!”—“Is it fire?”—“Are there robbers?”—“Where shall we run?” was demanded confusedly on all hands.  But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness.  They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable.

“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent.  “I cannot find him in his bed.”

“Here! here!” was shouted in return.  “Be composed, all of you: I’m coming.”

And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey.  One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.

“What awful event has taken place?” said she.  “Speak! let us know the worst at once!”

“But don’t pull me down or strangle me,” he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.

“All’s right!—all’s right!” he cried.  “It’s a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing.  Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.”

And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks.  Calming himself by an effort, he added—

“A servant has had the nightmare; that is all.  She’s an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright.  Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after.  Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the ladies the example.  Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors.  Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are.   Mesdames” (to the dowagers), “you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer.”

And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories.  I did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I had left it.

Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself carefully.  The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a servant’s dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to pacify his guests.  I dressed, then, to be ready for emergencies.  When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not what.  It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call.

No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert.  It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire.  Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set.  Not liking to sit in the cold and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was.  I left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door.

“Am I wanted?” I asked.

“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s.

“Yes, sir.”

“And dressed?”

“Yes.”

“Come out, then, quietly.”

I obeyed.  Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.

“I want you,” he said: “come this way: take your time, and make no noise.”

My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat.  He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his side.

“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any salts—volatile salts?”

“Yes.”

“Go back and fetch both.”

I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps.  He still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again.

“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?”

“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.”

I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.

“Just give me your hand,” he said: “it will not do to risk a fainting fit.”

I put my fingers into his.  “Warm and steady,” was his remark: he turned the key and opened the door.

I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed.  This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling.  Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment.  A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole’s own goblin ha! ha!  She then was there.  He made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him.

“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber.  An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed.  Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face—the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood.

“Hold the candle,” said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin of water from the washstand: “Hold that,” said he.  I obeyed.  He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils.  Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned.  Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down.

“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason.

“Pooh!  No—a mere scratch.  Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up!  I’ll fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by morning, I hope.  Jane,” he continued.

“Sir?”

“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose.  You will not speak to him on any pretext—and—Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak to her: open your lips—agitate yourself—and I’ll not answer for the consequences.”

Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him.  Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to use it as he had done.  He watched me a second, then saying, “Remember!—No conversation,” he left the room.  I experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard.

Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes—that was appalling—the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me.

I must keep to my post, however.  I must watch this ghastly countenance—these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose—these eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror.  I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.  I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite—whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.

According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his brow; now St. John’s long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor—of Satan himself—in his subordinate’s form.

Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den.  But since Mr. Rochester’s visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but three sounds at three long intervals,—a step creak, a momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.

Then my own thoughts worried me.  What crime was this that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner?—what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night?  What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman’s face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?

And this man I bent over—this commonplace, quiet stranger—how had he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him?  What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely season, when he should have been asleep in bed?  I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him an apartment below—what brought him here!  And why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him?  Why did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced?  Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment?  His guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion!  Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me of this.  It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester’s dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason’s arrival?  Why had the mere name of this unresisting individual—whom his word now sufficed to control like a child—fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak?

Oh!  I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: “Jane, I have got a blow—I have got a blow, Jane.”  I could not forget how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.

“When will he come?  When will he come?” I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered—as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived.  I had, again and again, held the water to Mason’s white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength.  He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him.

The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approaching.  Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived.  Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved.  It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed shorter.

Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch.

“Now, Carter, be on the alert,” he said to this last: “I give you but half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the patient downstairs and all.”

“But is he fit to move, sir?”

“No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must be kept up.  Come, set to work.”

Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten the east.  Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling.

“Now, my good fellow, how are you?” he asked.

“She’s done for me, I fear,” was the faint reply.

“Not a whit!—courage!  This day fortnight you’ll hardly be a pin the worse of it: you’ve lost a little blood; that’s all.  Carter, assure him there’s no danger.”

“I can do that conscientiously,” said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; “only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have bled so much—but how is this?  The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut.  This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth here!”

“She bit me,” he murmured.  “She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her.”

“You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once,” said Mr. Rochester.

“But under such circumstances, what could one do?” returned Mason.  “Oh, it was frightful!” he added, shuddering.  “And I did not expect it: she looked so quiet at first.”

“I warned you,” was his friend’s answer; “I said—be on your guard when you go near her.  Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and alone.”

“I thought I could have done some good.”

“You thought! you thought!  Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I’ll say no more.  Carter—hurry!—hurry!  The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off.”

“Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged.  I must look to this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.”

“She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart,” said Mason.

I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said—

“Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat it.”

“I wish I could forget it,” was the answer.

“You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried—or rather, you need not think of her at all.”

“Impossible to forget this night!”

“It is not impossible: have some energy, man.  You thought you were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now.  There!—Carter has done with you or nearly so; I’ll make you decent in a trice.  Jane” (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance), “take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.”

I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, and returned with them.

“Now,” said he, “go to the other side of the bed while I order his toilet; but don’t leave the room: you may be wanted again.”

I retired as directed.

“Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?” inquired Mr. Rochester presently.

“No, sir; all was very still.”

“We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder.  I have striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last.  Here, Carter, help him on with his waist-coat.  Where did you leave your furred cloak?  You can’t travel a mile without that, I know, in this damned cold climate.  In your room?—Jane, run down to Mr. Mason’s room,—the one next mine,—and fetch a cloak you will see there.”

Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and edged with fur.

“Now, I’ve another errand for you,” said my untiring master; “you must away to my room again.  What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture.  You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,—quick!”

I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.

“That’s well!  Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility.  I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter.  It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance.  Jane, a little water.”

He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand.

“That will do;—now wet the lip of the phial.”

I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason.

“Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so.”

“But will it hurt me?—is it inflammatory?”

“Drink! drink! drink!”

Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist.  He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied.  Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm—

“Now I am sure you can get on your feet,” he said—“try.”

The patient rose.

“Carter, take him under the other shoulder.  Be of good cheer, Richard; step out—that’s it!”

“I do feel better,” remarked Mr. Mason.

“I am sure you do.  Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you will see in the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement—to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem.”

It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent.  The side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside.  I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened.  The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the servants’ chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.

The gentlemen now appeared.  Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed.

“Take care of him,” said Mr. Rochester to the latter, “and keep him at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on.  Richard, how is it with you?”

“The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.”

“Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind—good-bye, Dick.”

“Fairfax—”

“Well what is it?”

“Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her—” he stopped and burst into tears.

“I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.

“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.

This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in the wall bordering the orchard.  I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call “Jane!”  He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me.

“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that house is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?”

“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.”

“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.  Now here” (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, and pure.”

He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs.  They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.

“Jane, will you have a flower?”

He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Do you like this sunrise, Jane?  That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid and balmly atmosphere?”

“I do, very much.”

“You have passed a strange night, Jane.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?”

“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.”

“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.”

“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?”

“Oh yes! don’t trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your thoughts.”

“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.”

“Never fear—I will take care of myself.”

“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?”

“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then.  To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day.”

“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led.  Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure you.”

“Oh, no!  Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.”

“Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him how to avert the danger.”

He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him.

“If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be?  Annihilated in a moment.  Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to him ‘Do that,’ and the thing has been done.  But I cannot give him orders in this case: I cannot say ‘Beware of harming me, Richard;’ for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible.  Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further.  You are my little friend, are you not?”

“I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.”

“Precisely: I see you do.  I see genuine contentment in your gait and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me—working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, ‘all that is right:’ for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and animated complexion.  My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale, and would say, ‘No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it is wrong;’ and would become immutable as a fixed star.  Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once.”

“If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, you are very safe.”

“God grant it may be so!  Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.”

The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat.  Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood before him.

“Sit,” he said; “the bench is long enough for two.  You don’t hesitate to take a place at my side, do you?  Is that wrong, Jane?”

I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.

“Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones’ breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their first spell of work—I’ll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying.”

“No, sir; I am content.”

“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence.  Mind, I don’t say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error.  The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable.  Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting.  Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling.  Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint.  Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being.  To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom—a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?”

He paused for an answer: and what was I to say?  Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response!  Vain aspiration!  The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate.

Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:

“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?”

“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature.  Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.”

“But the instrument—the instrument!  God, who does the work, ordains the instrument.  I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in—”

He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling.  I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes—so long was the silence protracted.  At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.

“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?”

He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he came back he was humming a tune.

“Jane, Jane,” said he, stopping before me, “you are quite pale with your vigils: don’t you curse me for disturbing your rest?”

“Curse you?  No, sir.”

“Shake hands in confirmation of the word.  What cold fingers!  They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber.  Jane, when will you watch with me again?”

“Whenever I can be useful, sir.”

“For instance, the night before I am married!  I am sure I shall not be able to sleep.  Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company?  To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know her.”

“Yes, sir.”

“She’s a rare one, is she not, Jane?”

“Yes, sir.”

“A strapper—a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had.  Bless me! there’s Dent and Lynn in the stables!  Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket.”

As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying cheerfully—

“Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.”

CHAPTER XXI

Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key.  I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own.  Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension.  And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.

When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one’s self or one’s kin.  The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix it there.  The next day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister.

Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water.  It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.

I did not like this iteration of one idea—this strange recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the vision drew near.  It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.  On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman’s servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band.

“I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,” he said, rising as I entered; “but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still.”

“Oh, Robert! how do you do?  I remember you very well: you used to give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana’s bay pony.  And how is Bessie?  You are married to Bessie?”

“Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another little one about two months since—we have three now—and both mother and child are thriving.”

“And are the family well at the house, Robert?”

“I am sorry I can’t give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at present—in great trouble.”

“I hope no one is dead,” I said, glancing at his black dress.  He too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied—

“Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.”

“Mr. John?”

“Yes.”

“And how does his mother bear it?”

“Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking.”

“I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.”

“Doing well!  He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate amongst the worst men and the worst women.  He got into debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits.  His head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard.  He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give up all to him.  Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead.  How he died, God knows!—they say he killed himself.”

I was silent: the things were frightful.  Robert Leaven resumed—

“Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down.  The information about Mr. John’s death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke.  She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling.  It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, ‘Bring Jane—fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her.’  Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send for you.  The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew so restless, and said, ‘Jane, Jane,’ so many times, that at last they consented.  I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow morning.”

“Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.”

“I think so too, Miss.  Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?”

“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ hall, and recommended him to the care of John’s wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.

He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds.  I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;—yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram.  To the billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game.  It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram’s side.  She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, “What can the creeping creature want now?” and when I said, in a low voice, “Mr. Rochester,” she made a movement as if tempted to order me away.  I remember her appearance at the moment—it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair.  She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments.

“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the “person” was.  He made a curious grimace—one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations—threw down his cue and followed me from the room.

“Well, Jane?” he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had shut.

“If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.”

“What to do?—where to go?”

“To see a sick lady who has sent for me.”

“What sick lady?—where does she live?”

“At Gateshead; in ---shire.”

“-shire?  That is a hundred miles off!  Who may she be that sends for people to see her that distance?”

“Her name is Reed, sir—Mrs. Reed.”

“Reed of Gateshead?  There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.”

“It is his widow, sir.”

“And what have you to do with her?  How do you know her?”

“Mr. Reed was my uncle—my mother’s brother.”

“The deuce he was!  You never told me that before: you always said you had no relations.”

“None that would own me, sir.  Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off.”

“Why?”

“Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.”

“But Reed left children?—you must have cousins?  Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago in London.”

“John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his family, and is supposed to have committed suicide.  The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.”

“And what good can you do her?  Nonsense, Jane!  I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off.”

“Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.”

“How long will you stay?”

“As short a time as possible, sir.”

“Promise me only to stay a week—”

“I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it.”

“At all events you will come back: you will not be induced under any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?”

“Oh, no!  I shall certainly return if all be well.”

“And who goes with you?  You don’t travel a hundred miles alone.”

“No, sir, she has sent her coachman.”

“A person to be trusted?”

“Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family.”

Mr. Rochester meditated.  “When do you wish to go?”

“Early to-morrow morning, sir.”

“Well, you must have some money; you can’t travel without money, and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet.  How much have you in the world, Jane?” he asked, smiling.

I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was.  “Five shillings, sir.”  He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him.  Soon he produced his pocket-book: “Here,” said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen.  I told him I had no change.

“I don’t want change; you know that.  Take your wages.”

I declined accepting more than was my due.  He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said—

“Right, right!  Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds.  There are ten; is it not plenty?”

“Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.”

“Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.”

“Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity.”

“Matter of business?  I am curious to hear it.”

“You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?”

“Yes; what then?”

“In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it.”

“To get her out of my bride’s way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically?  There’s sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of it.  Adèle, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to—the devil?”

“I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.”

“In course!” he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous.  He looked at me some minutes.

“And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?”

“No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favours of them—but I shall advertise.”

“You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!” he growled.  “At your peril you advertise!  I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds.  Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.”

“And so have I, sir,” I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me.  “I could not spare the money on any account.”

“Little niggard!” said he, “refusing me a pecuniary request!  Give me five pounds, Jane.”

“Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.”

“Just let me look at the cash.”

“No, sir; you are not to be trusted.”

“Jane!”

“Sir?”

“Promise me one thing.”

“I’ll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform.”

“Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me.  I’ll find you one in time.”

“I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I and Adèle shall be both safe out of the house before your bride enters it.”

“Very well! very well!  I’ll pledge my word on it.  You go to-morrow, then?”

“Yes, sir; early.”

“Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?”

“No, sir, I must prepare for the journey.”

“Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane?  Teach me; I’m not quite up to it.”

“They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.”

“Then say it.”

“Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.”

“What must I say?”

“The same, if you like, sir.”

“Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?”

“Yes?”

“It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly.  I should like something else: a little addition to the rite.  If one shook hands, for instance; but no—that would not content me either.  So you’ll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?”

“It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many.”

“Very likely; but it is blank and cool—‘Farewell.’”

“How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?” I asked myself; “I want to commence my packing.”  The dinner-bell rang, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.

I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o’clock in the afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the hall.  It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear.  Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner.

“Bless you!—I knew you would come!” exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered.

“Yes, Bessie,” said I, after I had kissed her; “and I trust I am not too late.  How is Mrs. Reed?—Alive still, I hope.”

“Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was.  The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she will finally recover.”

“Has she mentioned me lately?”

“She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the house.  She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven.  Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?”

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired.  I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days.  Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones.  I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him.  I told her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was content.  Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall.  It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked down the path I was now ascending.  On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored.  The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart.  I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression.  The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

“You shall go into the breakfast-room first,” said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; “the young ladies will be there.”

In another moment I was within that apartment.  There was every article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the hearth.  Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick’s British Birds occupying their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver’s Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above.  The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.

Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as Miss Ingram—very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien.  There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix.  This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.

The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I remembered—the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven.  This was a full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair.  The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from her sister’s—so much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as the other’s looked puritanical.

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent’s Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.

Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by the name of “Miss Eyre.”  Eliza’s greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me.  Georgiana added to her “How d’ye do?” several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet.  Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a “quiz” without actually saying the words.  A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.

A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me.  The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.

“How is Mrs. Reed?” I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an unexpected liberty.

“Mrs. Reed?  Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you can see her to-night.”

“If,” said I, “you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I should be much obliged to you.”

Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide.  “I know she had a particular wish to see me,” I added, “and I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary.”

“Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,” remarked Eliza.  I soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessie—who was, I dared say, in the kitchen—and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not to-night.  I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures.  It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan.  I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she was better—or dead: as to her daughters’ pride or folly, I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it.  So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing.

“Missis is awake,” said she; “I have told her you are here: come and let us see if she will know you.”