This is S.
D.
Hudson Magic.
Jane Eyre Chapter 20 Continued Come where there is some freshness,
Jane,
Said Mr.
Rochester.
That house is a mere dungeon,
Don't you feel it so?
It seems to me a splendid mansion,
Sir.
The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,
He answered,
And you see it through a charmed medium.
You cannot discern the gliding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs.
The marble is a sordid slate and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark.
Now here,
He pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered,
All is real,
Sweet and pure.
He strayed down a walk edged with barks,
With apple trees,
Pear trees and cherry trees on one side,
And a border on the other,
Full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers,
Stocks,
Sweet Williams,
Primroses,
Pansies,
Mingled with southern wood,
Sweet briar and various fragrant herbs.
They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams followed by a lovely spring morning could make them.
The sun was just entering the dappled east and his light illuminated the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.
Jane,
Will you have a flower?
He gathered a half-blown rose,
The first on the bush,
And offered it to me.
Thank you,
Sir.
Do you like this sunrise,
Jane?
That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day works his warm,
This placid and balmy atmosphere?
I do very much.
You have passed a strange night,
Jane.
Yes,
Sir.
And it has made you look pale.
Were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?
I was afraid of someone coming out of the inner room.
But I had fastened the door.
I had the key in my pocket.
I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb,
My pet lamb,
So near a wolf's den,
Unguarded.
You were safe.
Will Grace Paul live here still,
Sir?
Oh,
Yes.
Don't trouble your head about her.
Put the thing out of your thoughts.
Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure when she stays.
Never fear,
I will take care of myself.
Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now,
Sir?
I cannot vouch for that till Mason's out of England.
Not even then.
To live for me,
Jane,
Is to stand on a crater crust which may crack and spew fire any day.
But Mr.
Mason seems a man easily led.
Your influence,
Sir,
Is evidently potent with him.
He will never set you at defiance or willingly injure you.
Oh no,
Mason will not defy me,
Nor will he hurt me.
But unintentionally he might in a moment by one careless word deprive me,
If not of life,
Yet forever of happiness.
Tell him to be cautious,
Sir.
Let him know what you fear and show him how to avert the danger.
At this,
Mr.
Rochester laughed sardonically,
Hastily took my hand,
And just as hastily threw it from him.
I could do that,
Simpleton,
Where would the danger be?
Annihilated in a moment.
Ever since I've known Mason,
I've only had to say to him,
Do that,
And the thing is being done.
But I cannot give him orders in this case.
I cannot say,
Beware of harming me,
Richard,
For it's imperative I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible.
Now you look puzzled,
And I will puzzle you further.
You are my little friend,
Are you not?
I like to serve you,
Sir,
And to obey you in all that is right.
Precisely,
I see you do.
I see genuine contentment in your gait and mien,
Your eye and face,
When you are helping and pleasing me.
But if I bid you do what you thought wrong,
There would be no light-footed running,
No neat-handed alacrity,
No lively glance and animated complexion.
My friend would then turn to me quiet and pale and say,
No,
Sir,
That is impossible,
I cannot do it because it's wrong,
And would become immutable as a fixed star.
Well,
You too have power over me,
And may injure me,
Yet I dare not show you where I'm vulnerable.
Lest,
Faithful and friendly as you are,
You should transfix me at once.
If you have no more to fear from Mr.
Mason than you do from me,
You are very safe.
God-granted,
Maybe so.
Here,
Jane,
Is an arbor.
Sit down.
The arbor was an arch in the wall lined with ivy.
It contained a rustic seat.
Mr.
Rochester took it,
Leaving room,
However,
For me,
But I stood before him.
Sit,
He said.
The bench is long enough for two.
You don't hesitate to take a place at my side,
Do you?
Is that wrong,
Jane?
I answered him by assuming it,
To refuse words I felt have been unwise.
Oh,
My little friend,
While the sun drinks the dew,
While all the flowers in this old garden awake,
And the birds fetch their loved ones' breakfast out of the thorn field,
And the early bees do their first spell of work,
I'll put a case to you which you must endeavor to suppose your own.
But first look at me and tell me you're at ease,
And not fearing I err in detaining you,
Or that you err in staying.
No,
Sir,
I am content.
Well then,
Jane,
Call to aid your fancy.
Suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined,
But a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards.
Imagine yourself in a remote foreign land.
Conceive that you there commit a capital error,
No matter of what nature or from what motives,
But one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence.
Mind,
I don't say a crime.
I'm not speaking of shedding any blood or any other guilty act.
The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable.
You take measures to obtain relief,
Unusual measures,
But neither unlawful nor culpable.
Still you are miserable,
For hope has quitted you on the very confines of life.
Your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting.
Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory.
You wander here and there seeking rest in exile,
Happiness in pleasure,
I mean in heartless sensual pleasure such as dulls intellect and blights feeling.
Heart weary and soul withered,
You come home after years of voluntary banishment.
You make a new acquaintance,
How or where no matter,
You find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you've sought for twenty years and never before encountered.
And they are all fresh,
Healthy,
Without soil or taint.
Such society revives,
Regenerates.
You feel better days come back,
Higher wishes,
Purer feelings.
You desire to recommence your life and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being.
To attain this end,
Are you justified in over-leaping an obstacle of custom,
A mere conventional impediment,
Which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?
He paused for an answer.
And what was I to say?
All for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response.
Vain aspiration.
The west wind whispered in the ivy round me,
But no gentle aerial borrowed its breath as a medium of speech.
The birds sang in the treetops,
But their song,
However sweet,
Was inarticulate.
Again Mr.
Rochester propounded his query.
Is the wandering and sinful,
But now rest-seeking and repentant man justified in daring the world's opinion in order to attach to him forever this gentle,
Gracious,
Genial stranger,
Thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?
Sir,
I answered,
A wanderer's repose on a sinner's reformation should never depend on a fellow creature.
Men and women die.
Philosophers falter in wisdom and Christians in goodness.
If anyone you know has suffered and erred,
Let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.
But the instrument,
The instrument,
God who does the work,
Said Mr.
Rochester,
Ordains the instrument.
I have myself,
I tell it you without parable,
Been a worldly,
Dissipated,
Restless man,
And I believe I found the instrument for my cure in.
.
.
He paused.
The birds went on caroling,
The leaves lightly rustling.
I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation,
But they would have had to wait many minutes.
So long was the silence protracted.
At last I looked up at the tardy speaker,
And he was looking eagerly at me.
Little friend,
Said he,
In quite a changed tone,
While his face changed too,
Losing all its softness and gravity and becoming hard and sarcastic.
You have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram.
She would regenerate me with a vengeance.
He got up instantly,
Went quite to the other end of the walk,
And when he came back,
He was humming a tune.
Jane,
Jane,
Said he,
Stopping before me,
You are quite pale with your vigils.
Don't you curse me for disturbing your rest.
Curse you?
No,
Sir.
Shake hands in confirmation of the word.
What cold fingers!
They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber.
Jane,
When will you watch with me again?
Whenever I can be useful,
Sir.
For instance,
The night before I'm married,
I'm sure I shall not be able to sleep.
Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company?
To you I can talk of my lovely one,
For now you have seen her and know her.
Yes,
Sir.
She's a rare one,
Is she not,
Jane?
Yes,
Sir.
A strapper,
A real strapper,
Jane.
Big,
Brown and buxom with hair,
Just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had.
Bless me,
There's Denton Lynn in the stables,
Said suddenly.
Going by the shrubbery,
Through that wicket,
And as I went one way,
He went another,
And I heard him in the yard saying cheerily,
Mason got the start of yule this morning.
He was gone before sunrise.
I rose at four to see him off.
