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CHAPTER XI
A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a
play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see
a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the
walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the
mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another
of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an
oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which
I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am
warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours' exposure to the
rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o'clock a.m., and the Millcote
town clock is now just striking eight.
Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not
very tranquil in my mind. I thought when
the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously
round as I descended the wooden steps the "boots" placed for my
convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description
of carriage waiting to convey me to
Thornfield. Nothing
of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to
inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource
but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while
all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.
It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to
feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection,
uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented
by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that
sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it;
and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was
alone. I bethought myself to ring the
bell.
"Is there a place in this neighbourhood called
Thornfield?" I asked of the waiter who answered the summons.
"Thornfield? I
don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar." He vanished, but reappeared instantly--
"Is your name Eyre, Miss?"
"Yes."
"Person here waiting for you."
I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into
the inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street
I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance.
"This will be your luggage, I suppose?" said the
man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.
"Yes." He
hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in;
before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield.
"A matter of six miles."
"How long shall we be before we get there?"
"Happen an hour and a half."
He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside,
and we set off. Our progress was
leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so
near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not
elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease.
"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the
plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing
person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I
was very miserable with them. I wonder
if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree
amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a
pity that doing one's best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution,
kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was
always spurned with scorn. I pray God
Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not
bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise
again. How far are we on our road now, I
wonder?"
I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us;
judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable
magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We
were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses
scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different region to
Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his
horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to
two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said--
"You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now."
Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low
broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow
galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down
and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind
us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and
came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained
bow-window; all the rest were dark. The
car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and
went in.
"Will you walk this way, ma'am?" said the girl;
and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered
me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled
me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two
hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented
itself to my view.
A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an
arm-chair high- backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable
little elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly
like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder
looking. She was occupied in knitting; a
large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete
the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A
more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived;
there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I
entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John
drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire."
"Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?" said I.
"Yes, you are right: do sit down."
She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove
my shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so
much trouble.
"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are
almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a
little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the
storeroom."
And she produced from
her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant.
"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she
continued. "You've brought your
luggage with you, haven't you, my dear?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'll see it carried into your room," she said,
and bustled out.
"She treats me
like a visitor," thought I. "I
little expected such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness:
this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must
not exult too soon."
She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting
apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which
Leah now brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of
more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my
employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she was
doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities
quietly.
"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax
to-night?" I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me.
"What did you
say, my dear? I am a little deaf,"
returned the good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth.
I repeated the question more distinctly.
"Miss Fairfax?
Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens
is the name of your future pupil."
"Indeed! Then
she is not your daughter?"
"No,--I have no family."
I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in
what way Miss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not
polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.
"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down
opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee; "I am so glad you are come;
it will be quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for
Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but
still it is a respectable place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary
quite alone in the best quarters. I say alone--Leah
is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but
then you see they are only servants, and one can't converse with them on terms
of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one's
authority. I'm sure last winter (it was
a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and
blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from
November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night
after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the
poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better:
sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the
commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child
makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite
gay."
My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her
talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish
that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.
"But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night,"
said she; "it is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling
all day: you must feel tired. If you
have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for
you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than
one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they
are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself."
I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really
felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from
the room. First she went to see if the hall-door
was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way
upstairs. The steps and banisters were
of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery
into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church
rather than a house. A very chill and
vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of
space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to
find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style.
When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had
fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression
made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold
gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a
day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and
I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not
forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of
meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was
earned. My couch had no thorns in it
that night; my solitary room no fears.
At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was
broad day.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the
sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls
and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that
my spirits rose at the view. Externals
have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was
beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as
its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new
field offered to hope, seemed all astir.
I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something
pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future
period.
I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain--for
I had no article of attire that was not
made with extreme simplicity--I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of
appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished
to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would
permit. I sometimes regretted that I was
not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and
small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in
figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features
so irregular and so marked. And why had
I these aspirations and these regrets?
It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to
myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I
had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black
frock--which,
Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety--and
adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to
appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil
from me with antipathy. Having opened my
chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet
table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long
and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the
hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I
remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered
hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a
great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time
and rubbing. Everything appeared very
stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to
grandeur. The hall-door, which was half
of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun
shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the
lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not
vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat:
battlements round the
top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey
front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were
now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great
meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of
mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained
the etymology of the mansion's designation.
Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so
craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet
and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I
had not expected to
find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with
trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district
stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house
and gates.
I was yet enjoying
the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the
cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and
thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax
to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door.
"What! out already?" said she. "I see you are an early
riser." I went up to her, and was
received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.
"How do you like Thornfield?" she asked. I told her I liked it very much.
"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I
fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into
his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather
oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor."
"Mr. Rochester!" I exclaimed. "Who is he?"
"The owner of Thornfield," she responded
quietly. "Did you not know he was
called Rochester?"
