“Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,” I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out.
I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble.
I could not soon recover myself.
I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold.
“You come out at last,” he said.
“Well, I have been waiting for you long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the lock like a burglar.
So you shun me?—you shut yourself up and grieve alone!
I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence.
You are passionate. I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief.
But I err: you have not wept at all!
I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears.
I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?”
“Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter—nothing poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion?
You sit quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look.” “Jane, I never meant to wound you thus.
If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine.
Will you ever forgive me?”
Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot.
There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien—I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart’s core.
“You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?” ere long he inquired wistfully—wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness, the result rather of weakness than of will.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then tell me so roundly and sharply—don’t spare me.”
“I cannot: I am tired and sick.
I want some water.”
He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs.
At first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber.
He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon myself.
I was in the library—sitting in his chair—he was quite near.
“If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me,” I thought; “then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester’s. I must leave him, it appears.
I do not want to leave him—I cannot leave him.”
“How are you now, Jane?”
“Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.”
“Taste the wine again, Jane.”
I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and looked at me attentively.
Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden.
I turned my face away and put his aside.
“What!—How is this?” he exclaimed hastily.
“Oh, I know! you won’t kiss the husband of Bertha Mason?
You consider my arms filled and my embraces appropriated?”
“At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.”
“Why, Jane?
I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer for you—Because I have a wife already, you would reply.—I guess rightly?”
“Yes.”
“If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard me as a plotting profligate—a base and low rake who has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect.
What do you say to that?
I see you can say nothing in the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how to act—talking you consider is of no use.
I know you—I am on my guard.”
“Sir, I do not wish to act against you,” I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence.
“Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to destroy me.
You have as good as said that I am a married man—as a married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have refused to kiss me.
You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me: to live under this roof only as Adele’s governess; if ever I say a friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will say,—‘That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock to him;’ and ice and rock you will accordingly become.”