Having travelled from Lowton to Millcote and being dropped at an inn there, I had expected a separate carriage to be waiting for me, that would bear me to my new home. Anxiously, I looked about me, wondering what I should do and at last I entered the inn and enquired.
“Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thorn-field?” I asked of a waiter.
“Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am. I’ll inquire at the bar.” He vanished, but reappeared instantly. “Is your name Eyre, Miss?” “Yes.”
“There is a 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?”
“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 and so much the better. I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed.”
I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us, judging by the number of its lights. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common, but there were houses scattered all over the district and I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous and less picturesque. More stirring and less romantic.
The roads were heavy, the night misty and my conductor let his horse walk all the way. I verily believe it took two hours till at last, he turned in his seat and said, “You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.”
About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates, which 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, but all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door and 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. When I could finally see, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view.
A snug small room with 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. It was exactly as I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting and a large cat sat demurely at her feet. Nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. As I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.
“How do you do, my dear? 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 said, “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 and cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray of food which the servant, Leah, now brought for me. Then she herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before received, and shown by my employer and superior as well, but I did not fuss.
“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax tonight?” 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. Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and the man who brought you, 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. 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. In spring and summer one get on better. Sunshine and long days make such a difference. 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, they are dreary and solitary.”
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. 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 lifted at the view.
I rose and dressed myself with care, obliged to be plain— for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity. 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. 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. 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. 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 and I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn mor-ning and the early sun shone serenely through the windows. I looked out 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, who se cawing tenants were now on the wing and they flew over the lawn and grounds. Farther off were hills, not so lofty as those round Lowood nor so craggy, but seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air 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. 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?”
Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before, but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.
“I thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.”
“To me? Bless you, child, what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeper—the manager.”
“And the little girl—my pupil!”
“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward and he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He intended to have her brought up in -shire, I believe. Here she comes, with her ‘bonne’, as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame, but a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that, on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real and not the mere result of condescension on her part. So much the better—my position was all the freer.
As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me. She was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.
“Good morning, Miss Adele,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.”
She approached.
“C’est le ma gouverante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse, who answered, “Mais oui, certainement.”
“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.
“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adele was born on the Continent. I believe she never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little, but I don’t understand her since she mixes it so with French, but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say.”
Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adele. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to break fast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue. She replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.
“Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does. I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad, nobody here understands her and Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf.”
“Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax.
I understood her very well and nodded.
“I wish,” continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two about her parents. I wonder if she remembers them?”
“Adele,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?”
“I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or sit on their knees and sing to them. I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?”
She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee and then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid and desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her. The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was. At least I thought so.
Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naivete of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.”
Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained.
“Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked.
“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’ avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand to remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?”
“No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?”
“With Madame Frederic and her husband. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys. But you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him.”
After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.
I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply. She had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use.
As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: “Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose.” She was in a room, the folding-doors of which stood open. I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, s tately apartment with purple chairs and curtains. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard.
“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round.
“Yes, this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine. Though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected so I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.”
“Do you like Mr. Rochester? Is he generally liked?”
“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind.”
“But, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?”
“I have no cause to do otherwise than like him.”
“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?”
“Oh! His character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps. He has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him.” “In what way is he peculiar?”
“I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you. You cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary. You don’t thoroughly understand him, but he is a good master.”
This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman and a landed proprietor—nothing more.
When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. I liked the hush, the gloom and the quaintness of the large front rooms upstairs in the day, but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds. Some of them were shut in with doors of oak, others with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, stranger birds, and strangest human beings—all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
“Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked.
“No, they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back. No one ever sleeps here and one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.”
“So you have no ghost, then?”
“None that I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.
“Nor any traditions of one? No legends or ghost stories?” “I believe not.” I followed her up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion, the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber and the wood, dun and sere. The horizon was bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder and the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up.
Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trapdoor and I lingered in the long passage to which this led. It was narrow, low and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle.
While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region—a laugh—struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped and the sound ceased, only for an instant before it began again, louder. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued.
“Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out, for I now heard her descending the great stairs. “Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?”
“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered. “Perhaps Grace Poole.”
“Did you hear it?” I again inquired.
“Yes, plainly. I often hear her since she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her and they are frequently noisy together.”
The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur.
“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard.
The door nearest me opened and a servant came out—a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face. Any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived.
“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” Grace curtseyed silently and went in.
“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s work. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?”
The conversation thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming
“Mesdames, vous etes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!”
We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room.