St. John and I were wary of each other in the weeks leading to his departure. We ensured we were never alone together and always in the bright, chatter of Diana and Mary so that they might see that nothing was amiss. The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain the friendship of this man who had once saved me. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate.
“St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be friends.”
“I hope we are friends,” was the unmoved reply. “No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.”
“Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all good.”
“I believe you, St. John, for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers.”
“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from regarding you as a stranger. I have given you ample time to think, do you say again that you will not come to India with me?”
“Not as your wife.”
He sighed. “I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it and now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?”
It was true. I confessed it by silence.
“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?”
“I must find out what is become of him.”
“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway.”
He opened the gate, passed through it and strayed away down the glen, soon out of sight.
On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I and she put her hand on my shoulder, stooping to examine my face.
“Jane,” she said, “you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter.”
She paused but I did not speak.
“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you,” she carried on. “I am sure he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he never showed to any one else. I wish he loved you—does he, Jane?”
“No, not one whit.”
“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.”
“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.”
Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England and give up this notion of India.”
“Far from that. His sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.”
“What! He wishes you to go to India?”
“Yes.”
“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You never shall go! You have not consented, have you, Jane?”
“I have refused to marry him—”
“And have consequently displeased him?” she suggested.
“Deeply and he will never forgive me, yet I offered to accompany him as his sister.”
“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. St. John—you know him— would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?”
“Not as a husband.”
“Yet he is a handsome fellow.”
“And I am so plain, you see. We should never suit.”
“Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty as well as too good to be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.
“I must indeed,” I said, “for when just now I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried, as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.”
“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?”
“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labour, not for love, which is true, no doubt. But in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?”
“Insupportable! Unnatural! Out of the question!”
“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest in his progress he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana.”
And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the garden.
“Jane! Jane! Jane!”
The cry awoke me in the middle of the night and I sat up in bed.
“O 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. It did not come out of the air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. It was the voice of a human being; a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester, and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.
“I am coming!” I cried to my empty room. “Wait for me! Oh, I will come!”
Silence answered me.
I did not sleep again but lay in my bed for the rest of the night unscared and enlightened—waiting for the daylight.