I explained at once, therefore, as best I could, how I came to be there: described my journey, my bewilderment, and how that I knew not into what country nor company fate had beguiled me, except that the one was beautiful, and the other in some delightful way familiar, and I begged her to tell me where I really was, and how far from home, and of whom I was now beseeching forgiveness.
Her thoughts followed my every word, passing upon her face like shadows on the sea. I have never seen a listener so completely still and so completely engrossed in listening. And when I had finished, she looked aside with a transient, half-sly smile, and glanced at me again covertly, so that I could not see herself for seeing her eyes; and she laughed lightly.
"It is indeed a strange journey," she replied. "But I fear I cannot in the least direct you. I have never ventured my own self beyond the woods, lest—I should penetrate too far. But you are tired and hungry. Will you please walk on a few steps till you come to a stone seat? My name is Rochester—Jane Rochester"—she glanced up between the hollies with a sigh that was all but laughter—"Jane Eyre, you know."
I went on as she had bidden, and seated myself before an old, white, many-windowed house, squatting, like an owl at noon, beneath its green covert. In a few minutes the great dog with dripping jowl passed almost like reality, and after him his mistress, and on her arm her master, Mr. Rochester.
There seemed a night of darkness in that scarred face, and stars unearthly bright. He peered dimly at me, leaning heavily on Jane's arm, his left hand plunged into the bosom of his coat. And when he was come near, he lifted his hat to me with a kind of Spanish gravity.
"Is this the gentleman, Jane?" he enquired.
"Yes, sir."
"He's young!" he muttered.
"For otherwise he would not be here," she replied.
"Was the gate bolted, then?" he asked.
"Mr. Rochester desires to know if you had the audacity, sir, to scale his garden wall," Jane said, turning sharply on me. "Shall I count the strawberries, sir?" she added over her shoulder."
"Jane, Jane!" he exclaimed testily. "I have no wish to be uncivil, sir. We are not of the world—a mere dark satellite. I am dim; and suspicious of strangers, as this one treacherous eye should manifest. I'll but ask your name, sir—there are yet a few names left, once pleasing to my ear."
"My name is Brocken, sir—Henry Brocken," I answered.
"And—did you walk? Pah! there's the mystery! God knows how else you could have come, unless you are a modern Ganymede. Where then's your aquiline steed, sir? We have no neighbours here—none to stare, and pry, and prate, and slander."
I informed him that I was as ignorant as he what power had spirited me to his house, but that so far as obvious means went, my old horse was probably by this time fast asleep beside the green gate at which I had entered. Jane stood on tip-toe and whispered in his ear, and, nodding imperiously at him, withdrew into the house.
Complete silence fell between us after her departure. The woods stood dark and motionless in the yellow evening light. There was no sound of wind or water, no sound of voices or footsteps; only far away the clear, scarce-audible warbling of a sleepy bird.
"Well, sir," Mr. Rochester said suddenly, "I am bidden invite you to pass the night here. There are stranger inhabitants than Mr. and Mrs. Rochester in these regions you have by some means strayed into—wilder denizens, by much; for youth's seraphic finding. Not for mine, sir, I vow. Depart again in the morning, if you will: we shall neither of us be displeased by then to say farewell, I dare say. I do not seek company. My obscure shell is enough." I rose. "Sit down—sit down again, my dear sir; there's no mischief in the truth between two men of any world, I suppose, assuredly not of this. My wife will see to your comfort. There! hushie now, here he floats; sit still, sit still—I hear his wings. It is my 'Four Evangels,' sir!"
It was a sleek blackbird that had alighted and now set to singing on the topmost twig of a lofty pear-tree near by; and with his first note Jane reappeared. And while we listened, unstirring, to that rich, undaunted voice, I had good opportunity to observe her, and not, I think, without her knowledge, not even without her approval.
This, then, was the face that had returned wrath for wrath, remorse for remorse, passion for passion to that dark egotist Jane in the looking-glass. Yet who, thought I, could be else than beautiful with eyes that seemed to hide in fleeting cloud a flame as pure as amber? The arch simplicity of her gown, her small, narrow hands, the exquisite cleverness of mouth and chin, the lovely courage and sincerity of that yet-childish brow—it seemed even Mr. Rochester's "Four Evangels" out of his urgent rhetoric was summoning with reiterated persuasions, "Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Jane Eyre, Ja … ne!"
Light faded from the woods; a faint wind blew cold upon our faces. Jane took Mr. Rochester's hand and looked into his face.
She turned to me. "Will you come in, Mr. Brocken? I have seen that your horse is made quite easy. He was fast asleep, poor fellow, as you surmised; and, I think, dreaming; for when I proffered him a lump of sugar, he thrust his nose into my face and breathed as if I were a peck of corn. The candles are lit, sir; supper is ready."
We went in slowly, and Jane bolted the door. "But who it is that can be bolted out," she said, "I know not; though there's much to bolt in. I have stood here, Mr. Brocken, on darker nights as still as this, and have heard what seemed to be the sea breaking, far away, leagues upon leagues beyond the forests—the gush forward, the protracted, heavy retreat—listened till I could have wept to think that it was only my own poor furious heart beating. You may imagine, then, I push the bolts home."
"But why, Jane—why?" cried Mr. Rochester incredulously. "Violent fancies, child!"
"Why, sir, it was, I say, not the sea I heard, but a trickling tide one icy tap might stay, if it found but entry there."
"You talk wildly, Jane—wildly, wildly; the air's afloat with listeners; so it seems, so it seems. Had I but one clear lamp in this dark face!"
We sat down in the candle-lit twilight to supper. It was to me like the supper of a child, taken at peace in the clear beams, ere he descend into the shadow of sleep.
They sat, try as I would not to observe them, hand touching hand throughout the meal. But to me it was as if one might sit to eat before a great mountain ruffled with pines, and perpetually clamorous with torrents. All that Mr. Rochester said, every gesture, these were but the ghosts of words and movements. Behind them, gloomy, imperturbable, withdrawn, slumbered a strange, smouldering power. I began to see how very hotly Jane must love him, she who loved above all things storm, the winds of the equinox, the illimitable night-sky.
She begged him to take a little wine with me, and filled his glass till it burned like a ruby between their hands.
"It paints both our hands!" she cried glancing up at him.
"Ay, Janet," he answered; "but where is yours?"
"And what goal will you make for when you leave us," she enquired of me. "Is there anywhere else?" she added, lifting her slim eyebrows.
"I shall put trust in Chance," I replied, "which at least is steadfast in change. So long as it does not guide me back, I care not how far forward I go."
"You are right," she answered; "that is a puissant battlecry, here and hereafter."
Mr. Rochester rose hastily from his chair. "The candles irk me, Jane. I would like to be alone. Excuse me, sir." He left the room.
Jane lifted a dark curtain and beckoned me to bring the lights. She sat down before a little piano and desired me to sit beside her. And while she played, I know not what, but only it seemed old, well-remembered airs her mood suggested, she asked me many questions.
"And am I indeed only like that poor mad thing you thought Jane Eyre?" she said,