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room with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four
painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three
plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber
of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and
chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty
wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has
increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.
It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the
little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the
hearth. This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty
scholars. But three of the number can read: none write or cipher.
Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest
accent of the district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in
understanding each other's language. Some of them are unmannered,
rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a
wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not
forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood
as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of
native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as
likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born. My
duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some
happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect
in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate
my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on
from day to day.
Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed
in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to
deceive myself, I must reply- No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt-
yes, idiot that I am- I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step
which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I
was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of
all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself
too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong- that is a
great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I
trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks,
perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is
possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the
better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust.
Meantime, let me ask myself one question- Which is better?- To have
surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful
effort- no struggle;- but to have sunk down in the silken snare;
fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime,
amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in
France, Mr. Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my
time- for he would- oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a
while. He did love me- no one will ever love me so again. I shall
never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace-
for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was
fond and proud of me- it is what no man besides will ever be.- But
where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling?
Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at
Marseilles- fevered with delusive bliss one hour- suffocating with the
bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next- or to be a
village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook
in the healthy heart of England?
Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and
law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied
moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence
for the guidance!
Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to
my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet
fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a
mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains-
'The air was mild, the dew was balm.'
While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find
myself ere long weeping- and why? For the doom which had reft me
from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the
desperate grief and fatal fury- consequences of my departure- which
might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to
leave hope of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I
turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of
Morton- I say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me there was
no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in
trees, and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the
rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my
head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise
near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it
made me look up. A dog- old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer, as I saw in
a moment- was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself
leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave
almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.
'No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel My
sisters left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and
paper.'
I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my
face, I thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears
were doubtless very visible upon it.
'Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?' he
asked.
'Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my
scholars very well.'
'But perhaps your accommodations- your cottage- your furniture-
have disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty
enough; but-' I interrupted-
'My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and
commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not
absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a
carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had
nothing- I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have
acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the
generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.'
'But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind
you is dark and empty.'
'I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity,
much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness.'
'Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate,
your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to
the vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw
you, of course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every
temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present
career steadily, for some months at least.'
'It is what I mean to do,' I answered. St. John continued-
'It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn
the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience.
God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and
when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get- when
our will strains after a path we may not follow- we need neither
starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek
another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it
longed to taste- and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous
foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up
against us, if rougher than it.
'A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I
had made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties
wearied me to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world-
for the more exciting toils of a literary career- for the destiny of
an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes,
the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover
of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I
considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must
die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief
fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without
bounds- my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their
full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an
errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and
strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier,
statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the
good missionary.
'A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind
changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving
nothing of bondage but its galling soreness- which time only can heal.
My father, indeed, opposed the determination, but since his death, I
have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs
settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of
the feelings broken through or cut asunder- a last conflict with human
weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed
that I will overcome- and I leave Europe for the East.'
He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice;
looking, when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting
sun, at which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the
path leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on the
grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling
sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay
voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed-
'Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is
quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his
ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and
you have your back towards me now.'
It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those
musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his
head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude
in which the speaker had surprised him- his arm resting on the gate,
his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured
deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side.
There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure
white-a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and
when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and
threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of
perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not
retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime
of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid
gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this
instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible;
the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and
coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full;
the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a
fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the
white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties
of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh
too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth
without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich,
plenteous tresses- all advantages, in short, which, combined,
realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I
looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart.
Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her
usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her
darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.
What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally
asked myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her;
and, as naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his
countenance. He had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was
looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket.
'A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,' he said, as
he crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.
town some twenty miles distant) 'this afternoon. Papa told me you
had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I
put on my bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this
is she?' pointing to me.
'It is,' said St. John.
'Do you think you shall like Morton?' she asked of me, with a
direct and naive simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if
child-like.
'I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.'
'Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?'
'Quite.'
'Do you like your house?'
'Very much.'
'Have I furnished it nicely?'
'Very nicely, indeed.'
'And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?'
'You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.' (This then, I
thought, is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts
of fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of
the planets presided over her birth, I wonder?)
'I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,' she added. 'It
will be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a
night, or rather this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The
are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young
knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.'
It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his
upper lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal
compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square,
as the laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze,
too, from the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a
searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh,
and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright
eyes.
As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo.
'Poor Carlo loves me,' said she. 'He is not stern and distant to his
friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent.'
As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before
his young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face.
I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with
resistless emotion. Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as
beautiful for a man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if
his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite
the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But
he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed.
He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances
made him.
'Papa says you never come to see us now,' continued Mis Oliver,
looking up. 'You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this
evening, and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?'
'It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,' answered
St. John.
'Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour
when papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has
no business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why are you so
very shy, and so very sombre?' She filled up the hiatus his silence
left by a reply of her own.
'I forgot!' she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if
shocked at herself. 'I am so giddy and thoughtless! Do excuse me. It
had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed
for joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor
House is shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come
and see papa.'
'Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.'
Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew
the effort it cost him thus to refuse.
'Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not
stay any longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!'
She held out her hand. He just touched it. 'Good evening!' he
repeated, in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a
moment returned.
'Are you well?' she asked. Well might she put the question: his
face was blanched as her gown.
'Quite well,' he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She
went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she
tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across,
never turned at all.
This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my
thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had
designated her brother 'inexorable as death.' She had not exaggerated.
