Chapter 6

That night I never thought to sleep, but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed, and in my sleep a vision spoke to my spirit: "Daughter, flee temptation!" I rose with the dim dawn. One word comprised my intolerable duty--Depart!

After three days wandering and starvation on the north-midland moors, for hastily and secretly I had travelled by coach as far from Thornfield as my money would carry me, I found a temporary home at the vicarage of Morton, until the clergyman of that moorland parish, Mr. St. John Rivers, secured for me--under the assumed name of Jane Elliott--the mistresship of the village school.

At Christmas I left the school. As the spring advanced St. John Rivers, who, with an icy heroism, was possessed by the idea of becoming a missionary, urged me strongly to accompany him to India as his wife, on the grounds that I was docile, diligent, and courageous, and would be very useful. I felt such veneration for him that I was tempted to cease struggling with him--to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own.

_V.--Reunion_

The time came when he called on me to decide. I fervently longed to do what was right, and only that. "Show me the path, show me the path!" I entreated of Heaven.

My heart beat fast and thick; I heard its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through. My senses rose expectant; ear and eye waited, while the flesh quivered on my bones. I saw nothing; but I heard a voice, somewhere, cry "Jane! Jane! Jane!"-- nothing more.

"Oh, God! What is it?" I gasped. I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room, nor in the house, nor in the garden, nor from overhead. And it was the voice of a human being--a loved, well-remembered voice--that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.

"I am coming!" I cried. "Wait for me!" I ran out into the garden; it was void.

"Down, superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate.

I mounted to my chamber, locked myself in, fell on my knees, and seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet.

Then I rose from the thanksgiving, took a resolve, and lay down, unscared, enlightened, eager but for the daylight.

Thirty-six hours later I was crossing the fields to where I could see the full front of my master's mansion, and, looking with a timorous joy, saw--a blackened ruin.

Where, meantime, was the hapless owner?

I returned to the inn, where the host himself, a respectable middle-aged man, brought my breakfast into the parlour. I scarcely knew how to begin my questions.

"Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?"

"No, ma'am--oh, no! No one is living there. It was burnt down about harvest time. The fire broke out at dead of night."

"Was it known how it originated?"

"They guessed, ma'am; they guessed. There was a lady--a--a lunatic kept in the house. She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs. Poole, an able woman but for one fault--she kept a private bottle of gin by her; and the mad lady would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house doing any wild mischief that came into her head. Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out, and he went up to the attics and got the servants out of their beds, and then went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was waving her arms and shouting till they could hear her a mile off. She was a big woman, and had long, black hair; and we could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. We saw Mr. Rochester approach her and call 'Bertha!' And then, ma'am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute lay dead, smashed on the pavement."

"Were any other lives lost?"

"No. Perhaps it would have been better if there had. Poor Mr. Edward! He is stone-blind."

I had dreaded he was mad.

"As he came down the great staircase it fell, and he was taken out of the ruins with one eye knocked out and one hand so crushed that the surgeon had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed, and he lost the sight of that also."

"Where does he live now?"

"At Ferndean, a manor house on a farm he has--quite a desolate spot. Old John and his wife are with him; he would have none else."

To Ferndean I came just ere dusk, walking the last mile. As I approached, the narrow front door of the grange slowly opened, and a figure came out into the twilight; a man without a hat. He stretched forth his hand to feel whether it rained. It was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester.

He groped his way back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door. I now drew near and knocked, and John's wife opened for me.

"Mary," I said, "how are you?"

She started as if she had seen a ghost. I calmed her, and followed her into the kitchen, where I explained in a few words that I should stay for the night, and that John must fetch my trunk from the turnpike house. At this moment the parlour bell rang.

Mary proceeded to fill a glass with water and place it on a tray, together with candles.

"Give the tray to me; I will carry it in."

The old dog Pilot pricked up his ears as I entered the room; then he jumped up with a yelp, and bounded towards me, almost knocking the tray from my hands.

"What is the matter?" inquired Mr. Rochester.

He put out his hand with a quick gesture. "Who is this?" he demanded imperiously.

"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said.

"What is it? Who speaks?"

"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here," I answered.

He groped, and, arresting his wandering hand, I prisoned it in both mine.

"Her very fingers! Her small, slight fingers! Is it Jane--Jane Eyre?" he cried.

"My dear master, I am Jane Eyre. I have found you out; I am come back to you!"

* * * * *

Shirley

"Shirley," Charlotte Brontë's second novel, was published two years after "Jane Eyre"--on October 26, 1849. The writing of it was a tragedy. When the book was begun, her brother, Branwell, and her two sisters, Emily and Anne Brontë, were alive. When it was finished all were dead, and Charlotte was left alone with her aged father. In the character of Shirley Keeldar the novelist tried to depict her sister Emily as she would have been had she been placed in health and prosperity. Nearly all the characters were drawn from life, and drawn so vividly that they were recognised locally. Caroline Helstone was sketched from Ellen Nussey, Charlotte Brontë's dearest friend, who furnished later much of the material for the best biographies of the novelist. "Shirley" fully sustained at the time of its publication, the reputation won through "Jane Eyre"; but under the test of time the story--owing, no doubt, to the conditions under which it was written--has not taken rank with that first-fruit of genius, "Jane Eyre," or that consummation of genius, "Villette."

_I.--In the Dark Days of the War_

Released from the business yoke, Robert Moore was, if not lively himself, a willing spectator of the liveliness of Caroline Helstone, his cousin, a complacent listener to her talk, a ready respondent to her questions. Sometimes he was better than this--almost animated, quite gentle and friendly. The drawback was that by the next morning he was frozen up again.

To-night he stood on the kitchen hearth of Hollow's cottage, after his return from Whinbury cloth-market, and Caroline, who had come over to the cottage from the vicarage, stood beside him. Looking down, his glance rested on an uplifted face, flushed, smiling, happy, shaded with silky curls, lit with fine eyes. Moore placed his hand a moment on his young cousin's shoulder, stooped, and left a kiss on her forehead.

"Are you certain, Robert, you are not fretting about your frames and your business, and the war?" she asked.

"Not just now."

"Are you positive you don't feel Hollow's cottage too small for you, and narrow, and dismal?"

"At this moment, no."

"Can you affirm that you are not bitter at heart because rich and great people forget you?"

"No more questions. I am not anxious to curry favour with rich and great people. I only want means--a position--a career."

"Which your own talent and goodness shall win for you. You were made to be great; you shall be great."

"Ah! You judge me with your heart; you should judge me with your head."

It was the dark days of the Napoleonic wars, when the cloth of the West Riding was shut out from the markets of the world, and ruin threatened the manufacturers, while the introduction of machinery so reduced the numbers of the factory hands that desperation was born of misery and famine.

Robert Moore, of Hollow's Mill, was one of the most unpopular of the mill-owners, partly because he haughtily declined to conciliate the working class, and partly because of his foreign demeanour, for he was the son of a Flemish mother, had been educated abroad, and had only come home recently to attempt to retrieve, by modern trading methods, the fallen fortune of the ancient firm of his Yorkshire forefathers.

The last trade outrage of the district had been the destruction on Stilbro' Moor of the new machines that were being brought by night to his mill.

Caroline Helstone was eighteen years old, drawing near the confines of illusive dreams. Elf-land behind her, the shores of Reality in front. To herself she said that night, after Robert had walked home with her to the rectory gate: "I love Robert, and I feel sure that he loves me. I have thought so many a time before; to-day I felt it."

And Robert, leaning later on his own yard gate, with the hushed, dark mill before him, exclaimed: "This won't do. There's weakness--there's downright ruin in all this."

For Caroline Helstone was a fatherless and portionless girl, entirely dependent on her uncle, the vicar of Briarfield.

_II.--The Master of Hollows Mill_

"Come, child, put away your books. Lock them up! Get your bonnet on; I want you to make a call with me."

"With you, uncle?"

Thus the Rev. Matthewson Helstone, the imperious little vicar of Briarfield, to his niece, who, obeyed his unusual request, asked where they were going.

"To Fieldhead," replied the Rev. Matthewson Helstone. "We are going to see Miss Shirley Keeldar."

"Miss Keeldar! Is she come to Yorkshire?"

"She is; and will reside for a time on her property."

The Keeldars were the lords of the manor, and their property included the mill rented by Mr. Robert Moore.

The visitors were received at Fieldhead by a middle-aged nervous English lady, to whom Caroline at once found it natural to talk with a gentle ease, until Miss Shirley Keeldar, entering the room, introduced them to Mrs. Pryor, who, she added, "was my governess, and is still my friend."

Shirley Keeldar was no ugly heiress. She was agreeable to the eye, gracefully made, and her face, pale, intelligent, and of varied expression, also possessed the charm of grace.

The interview had not proceeded far before Shirley hoped they would often have the presence of Miss Helstone at Fieldhead; a request repeated by Mrs. Pryor.

"You are distinguished more than you think," said Shirley, "for Mrs. Pryor often tantalises me by the extreme caution of her judgments. I have entreated her to say what she thinks of my gentleman-tenant, Mr. Moore, but she evades an answer. What are Mr. Moore's politics?"

"Those of a tradesman," returned the rector; "narrow, selfish, and unpatriotic."

"He looks a gentleman, and it pleases me to think he is such."

"And decidedly he is," joined in Caroline, in distinct tones.

"You are his friend, at any rate," said Shirley, flashing a searching glance at the speaker.

"I am both his friend and relative."

"I like that romantic Hollow with all my heart--the old mill, and the white cottage, and the counting-house."

"And the trade?" inquired the rector.

"Half my income comes from the works in that Hollow."

"Don't enter into partnership, that's all."

"You've put it into my head!" she exclaimed, with a joyous laugh. "It will never get out; thank you."

Some days later, the new friends were walking together towards the rectory when the talk turned on the qualities which prove that a man can be trusted.

"Do you know what soothsayers I would consult?" asked Caroline.

"Let me hear."

"Neither man nor woman, elderly nor young; the little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that, in frost and snow, pecks at the window for a crumb. I know somebody to whose knee the black cat loves to climb, against whose shoulder and cheek it loves to purr. The old dog always comes out of his kennel and wags his tail when somebody passes."

"Is it Robert?"

"It is Robert."

"Handsome fellow!" said Shirley, with enthusiasm. "He is both graceful and good."

"I was sure that you would see that he was. When I first looked at your face I knew that you would."

"I was well inclined to him before I saw him; I liked him when I did see him; I admire him now."

When they kissed each other and parted at the rectory gate, Shirley said:

"Caroline Helstone, I have never in my whole life been able to talk to a young lady as I have talked to you this morning."

"This is the worst passage I have come to yet," said Caroline to herself. "Still, I was prepared for it. I gave Robert up to Shirley the first day I heard she was come."

_III.--Caroline Finds a Mother_

The Whitsuntide school treats were being held, and it was Shirley Keeldar who, at the head of the tea-table, kept a place for Robert Moore, and whose temper became clouded when he was late. When he did come he was hard and preoccupied, and presently the two girls noticed he was shaking hands and renewing a broken friendship with a militant rector in the playing field, and that the more vigorous of their manufacturing neighbours had gathered in a group to talk.

"There is some mystery afloat," said Shirley. "Some event is expected, some preparation to be made; and Robert's secrecy vexes me. See, they are all shaking hands with emphasis, as if ratifying some league."

"We must be on the alert," said Caroline, "and perhaps we shall find a clue."

Later, the rector came to them to mention that he would not sleep at home that night, and Shirley had better stay with Caroline--arrangements which they could not but connect with a glimpse of martial scarlet they had observed on a distant moor earlier in the day, and the passage, by a quiet route, of six cavalry soldiers.

So the girls sat up that night and watched, until, close upon midnight, they heard the tramp of hundreds of marching feet. The mob halted by the rectory for a muttered consultation, and then moved cautiously along towards the Hollow's Mill.

In vain did the two watchers try to cross to the mill by fenced fields and give the alarm. When they reached a point from which they could overlook the mill, the attack had already begun, and the yard-gates were being forced. A volley of stones smashed every window, but the mill remained mute as a mausoleum.

"He cannot be alone," whispered Caroline.

"I would stake all I have that he is as little alone as he is alarmed," responded Shirley.

Shots were discharged by the rioters. Had the defenders waited for this signal? It seemed so. The inert mill woke, and a volley of musketry pealed sharp through the Hollow. It was difficult in the darkness to distinguish what was going on now. The mill yard was full of battle-movement; there was struggling, rushing, trampling, and shouting, and then the rioters, who had never dreamed of encountering an organised defence, fell back defeated, but leaving the premises a blot of desolation on the fresh front of the summer dawn.

Caroline Helstone now fell into a state of depression and physical weakness which she tried in vain to combat.

"It is scarcely living to measure time as I do at the rectory," she confessed one day to Mrs. Pryor, who had become her instructress and friend. "The hours pass, and I get over them somehow, but I do not live I endure existence, but I barely enjoy it. I want to go away from this place and forget it."

"You know I am at present residing with Miss Keeldar in the capacity of companion," Mrs. Pryor replied. "Should she marry, and that she will marry ere long many circumstances induce me to conclude, I shall cease to be necessary to her. I possess a small independency, arising partly from my own savings and partly from a legacy. Whenever I leave Fieldhead I shall take a house of my own. I have no relations to invite to close intimacy. To you, my dear, I need not say I am attached. With you I am happier than I have been with any living thing. You will come to me then, Caroline?"

"Indeed, I love you," was the reply, "and I should like to live with you."

"All I have I would leave to you."

"But, my dear madam, I have no claim on this generosity--"

Mrs. Pryor now displayed such agitation that it was Caroline who had to become comforter.

The sequel to this scene appeared when Caroline sank into so weak a state that constant nursing was needed, and Mrs. Pryor established herself at the rectory.

One day, when the watchful nurse could not forbear to weep--her full heart overflowing--her patient asked:

"Do you think I shall not get better? I do not feel very ill--only weak."

"But your mind, Caroline; your mind is crushed; your heart is broken; you have been left so desolate."

"I sometimes think if an abundant gush of happiness came on me, I could revive yet."

"You love me, Caroline?"

"Inexpressibly. I sometimes feel as if I could almost grow to your heart."

"Then, if you love me so, it will be neither shock nor pain for you to know that you are my own child."

"Mrs. Pryor! That is--that means--you have adopted me?"

"It means that I am your true mother."

"But Mrs. James Helstone--but my father's wife, whom I do not remember to have seen, she is my mother?"

"She is your mother," Mrs. Pryor assured her. "James Helstone was my husband."

"Is what I hear true? Is it no dream? My own mother! And one I can be so fond of! If you are my mother, the world is all changed to me."

The offspring nestled to the parent, who gathered her to her bosom, covered her with noiseless kisses, and murmured love over her like a cushat fostering its young.

_IV.--An Old Acquaintance_

An uncle of Shirley Keeldar, Sympson by name, now came with his family to stay at Feidhead, and accompanying them, as tutor to a crippled son Harry, was Louis Moore, Robert's younger brother.

"Shirley," said Caroline one day as they sat in the summer-house, "you are a singular being. I thought I knew you quite well; I begin to find myself mistaken. Did you know that my cousin Louis was tutor in your uncle's family before the Sympsons came down here?"

"Yes, of course; I knew it well."

"How chanced it that you never mentioned it to me?" asked Caroline. "You knew Mrs. Pryor was my mother, and were silent, and now here again is another secret."

"I never made it a secret; you never asked me who Henry's tutor was, or I would have told you."

"I am puzzled about more things than one in this matter. You don't like poor Louis--why? Do you wish that Robert's brother were more highly placed?"

"Robert's brother, indeed!" was the exclamation in a tone of scorn, and, with a movement of proud impatience, Shirley snatched a rose from a branch peeping through the open lattice. "Robert's brother! Robert's brother is a topic on which you and I shall quarrel if we discuss it often; so drop it henceforth and for ever."

She would have understood the meaning of that outburst better if she had heard a conversation in the schoolroom a few days later between Louis Moore and Shirley.

"For two years," he was saying, "I had once a pupil who grew very dear to me. Henry is dear, but she was dearer. Henry never gives me trouble; she--well--she did. She spilled the draught from my cup; and having taken from me my peace of mind and ease of life, she took from me herself, quite coolly--just as if, when she was gone, the world would be all the same to me. At the end of two years it fell out that we encountered again. She received me haughtily; but then she was inconsistent: she tantalised as before. When I thought of her only as a lofty stranger, she would suddenly show me a glimpse of loving simplicity, warm me with such a beam of reviving sympathy that I could no more shut my heart to her image than I could close that door against her presence. Explain why she distressed me so."

"She could not bear to be quite outcast," was the docile reply.

Caroline would have understood still more could she have read what Louis Moore wrote in his diary that night: "What a child she is sometimes! What an unsophisticated, untaught thing! I worship her perfections; but it is her faults, or at least her foibles, that bring her near to me. If I were a king and she were a housemaid, my eye would recognise her qualities."

Robert Moore had long been absent from Briarfield, and no one knew why he stayed away. It could not be that he was afraid, for he had shown the utmost fearlessness in bringing to justice and transportation the four ringleaders in the attack on the mill. He had now returned, and one day as he rode over Rushedge Moore from Stilbro' market with a bluff neighbour, he unbosomed himself of the reason why he had remained thus long from home.

"I certainly believed she loved me," he said. "I have seen her eyes sparkle when she found me out in a crowd. When my name was uttered she changed countenance; I knew she did. She was cordial to me; she took an interest in me; she was anxious about me. I saw power in her; I owed her gratitude. She aided me substantially and effectively with a loan of five thousand pounds. Could I believe she loved me? With an admiration dedicated entirely to myself I smiled at her being the first to love and to show it. That whip of yours seems to have a good heavy handle. Knock me out of the saddle with it if you choose, for I never felt as if nature meant her to be my other and better self. Yet I walked up to Fieldhead and in a hard, firm fashion offered myself--my fine person-- with all my debts, of course, as a settlement. There was no misunderstanding her aspect and voice as she indignantly ejaculated: 'God bless me!' Her eyes lightened as she said: 'You have pained me; you have outraged me; you have deceived me. I did respect, I did admire, I did like you, and you would immolate me to that mill--your Moloch!' I was obliged to say, 'Forgive me!' To which she replied, 'I could if there was not myself to forgive too, but to mislead a sagacious man so far I must have done wrong.' She added, 'I am sorry for what has happened.' So was I, God knows."

It was after this talk that Moore was shot down by a concealed assassin.

_V.--Love Scenes_

On the very night that Robert Moore arrived at his cottage in the Hollow, after being nursed back to life in the house of the neighbour who was with him when he was shot by a fanatical revolutionist, he scribbled a note to ask his cousin Caroline to call, as was her wont before the days of misunderstanding.

"Caroline, you look as if you had heard good tidings," said Robert. "What is the source of the sunshine I perceive about you?"

"For one thing, I am happy in mamma. I love her more tenderly every day. And I am glad you are better, and that we are friends."

"Cary, I mean to tell you some day a thing about myself that is not to my credit. I cannot bear that you should think better of me than I deserve."

"But I believe I know all about it. I inferred something, gathered more from rumour, and made out the rest by instinct."