Jane Eyre (80 page)

“We will go home through the wood, that will be the shadiest way.”

He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.

“Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog, but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer, judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong. I would have sullied my innocent flower—breathed guilt on its purity. The Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation, instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me. I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death.
His
chastisements are mighty and one smote me which has humbled me forever. You know I was proud of my strength, but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane—only—only of late—I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray, very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.

“Some days since, nay, I can number them—four. It was last Monday night, a singular mood came over me, one in which grief replaced frenzy—sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night—perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o’clock—ere I retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane.

“I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open, it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air, though I could see no stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented and might not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I acknowledged—that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded and the alpha and omega of my heart’s wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words—‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’”

“Did you speak these words aloud?”

“I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me mad, I pronounced them with such frantic energy.”

“And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?”

“Yes, but the time is of no consequence, what followed is the strange point. You will think me superstitious—some superstition I have in my blood, and always had, nevertheless, this is true—true at least it is that I heard what I now relate.

“As I exclaimed ‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’ a voice—I cannot tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it was—replied, ‘I am coming, wait for me,’ and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words—‘Where are you?’

“I’ll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my mind, yet it is difficult to express what I want to express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. ‘Where are you?’ seemed spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow. I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane, perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine, for those were your accents—as certain as I live—they were yours!”

Reader, it was on Monday night—near midnight—that I too had received the mysterious summons, those were the very words by which I replied to it. I listened to Mr Rochester’s narrative, but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer, and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart.

“You cannot now wonder,” continued my master, “that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God!”

He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.

“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgement, he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!”

Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder, being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward, to dinner, and then to the privacy of our joining.

 Chapter Thirty-Eight

Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had, he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I accepted a necklace—nothing grand!—but it was a symbol he and I shared. I was his, in mind, heart, and flesh. I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said—

“Mary, I have been married to Mr Rochester this morning.” The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me, the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air and for the same space of time John’s knives also had rest from the polishing process, but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only, “Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!”

A short time after she pursued—“I seed you go out with the master, but I didn’t know you were gone to church to be wed,” and she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.

“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said, “I knew what Mr Edward”—John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name— “I knew what Mr Edward would do and I was certain he would not wait long neither, and he’s done right, for aught I know. I wish you joy, Miss!” and he politely pulled his forelock.

“Thank you, John. Mr Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.” I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught the words—

“She’ll happen do better for him nor ony o’t’ grand ladies.” And again, “If she ben’t one o’ th’ handsomest, she’s noan faâl and varry good-natured and i’ his een she’s fair beautiful, onybody may see that.”

I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had done, fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see me.

“She had better not wait till then, Jane,” said Mr Rochester, when I read her letter to him, “if she does, she will be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our life long, its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.”

 He grabbed me to him, lifted my dress, found my quim and demonstrated what he meant! “Sir,” I protested.

 “You are mine, Jane Rochester.”

 That was who I was, I had accepted it. I embraced it! He kissed me. I acquiesced. “And you mine, sir.” I took to my knees and took down his trousers. I sucked him into my mouth, feeling the flesh go from slightly hard to fully engorged.

 He stroked my necklace, unspeakingly claiming me; then he held my skull. “Place your hands behind your neck, miss.”

 While he usually allowed me set the pace, this time, he did, filling me, establishing his dominance. In most things we were equal. In this I was subservient. It suited me well, as my body well noted.

 He stopped before spilling his seed down my throat.

 “I shall have you, Jane.”

 I shuddered.

 “Undress.”

 After I was naked, he bade me to fetch clamps for my nipples. He had started to re-acquire items with which to torment me, benches, whips, restraints. It would not be a dull future.

 I held my breasts while he applied the clamps. We naturally worked together to his ends. How could I have ever believed we were not meant to be together?

I used my mouth to bring him to full desire again. He urged me against the far wall. I had to use my balance skills to go on my tiptoes while he thrust up inside me.

 The feel of him—skin to skin—thrilled me. It was different, powerful, delightful.

 “Do not orgasm without permission, darling.”

 With his touches, he teased and tormented me for what seemed an eternity. Desire crashed over me again and again, yet my master denied me.

 He pressed against me, surged up, pulled on my clamps and caused me to shiver. He touched my necklace and said, “Thank you for this symbol, Jane.”

 “As it was not extravagant, sir, how could I resist?”

 He hit a certain spot in me, and I was done for! I peaked, my body bucking, demanding even more from him.

 “My perfect little miss,” said he.

 Moments later, I felt a warm gush inside me. There was nothing between us. We had given up using safes the moment we had been married, and I received his ejaculate as if it were a gift!

 I had never gotten accustomed to this, Mr Rochester exercising his marriage privileges at will. My husband—would I ever tire of that word?—was a worldly man with many needs. How happy I was to service them!

 We eventually returned to our duties, but I basked in a warm glow. My life was in order. While Diana and Mary were in communication, how St. John received the news, I don’t know, he never answered the letter in which I communicated it. Yet six months after he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr Rochester’s name or alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since. He hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in the world, and only mind earthly things.

You have not quite forgotten little Adèle, have you, reader? I had not. I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr Rochester, to go and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin, she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age, I took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable, my time and cares were now required by another—my husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort, she soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion, docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.

My tale draws to its close, one word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done.

I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express, because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am, ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I still wear his collar and kneel when commanded, or when I wish to provoke a reaction. He has taught me many more things, and just yesterday an implement to explore my tiniest hole arrived by post. He plans to use it on me soon, perhaps even tonight if I interpreted his smile correctly. I know no weariness of my Edward’s society, he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long, to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me, we are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result.

Mr Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near—that knit us so very close, for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was—what he often called me—the apple of his eye. He saw nature—he saw books through me—in fact, he made me describe sexual positions in a book he’d recently acquired from overseas and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape before us; of the weather round us—and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go, of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad—because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance, he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.