CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Mr. Rochester’s Story
Sometime in the afternoon I woke up from a long sleep. I felt weak when I stood up, because I had not eaten anything all day. When I opened my bedroom door, I saw Mr. Rochester. He was sitting in a chair outside my door. He looked at me with the face of an unhappy man.
“I’ve been waiting for you all this time, Jane,” he said quietly. “I’ve been listening. I haven’t heard you shout or scream or cry, not once. Aren’t you angry with me? But I never meant to hurt you. Can you ever forgive me?”
I knew he was telling me the truth. In my heart, I forgave him immediately.
“Shout at me, Jane! Tell me how terrible I am!” he said.
“Sir, I can’t right now. I am tired and weak. I need some water.”
He took me in his arms and carried me to the library. He put me in front of the fire and gave me some water and a glass of wine. Slowly, my body began to feel better. Mr. Rochester bent to kiss me, but I turned my face away.
“What!” he cried. “You won’t kiss me! It’s because I’m married, isn’t it!”
“Yes, sir.”
“I know you very well, Jane. I know how firm and strong you are when you’ve decided to do something. You’re planning to destroy my chances of happiness with you. You will treat me like a stranger. You will tell yourself, ’That man lied to me, and tried to marry me when he couldn’t. I must be cold to him,’ and you will be1”
“It’s true, sir,” I said, trying to stop myself from crying. “Everything around me has changed, and so I must change too. Adele must have a new teacher.”
“Oh, Adele will go to boarding school. I’ve already decided that. And you and I will both leave this house, this stone hell, this house of living death! We can never be happy here, under the same roof as Bertha Mason, Oh, how I hat her!”
“Sir!,” I cried. “Don’t hate her! You can’t! It’s not her fault she is mad!”
“Jane, my darling, it’s not because she’s mad that I hate her! If you were mad, I wouldn’t hate you. I’d take care of you lovingly. But why talk of this? We are ready to travel. Tomorrow we’ll leave. I know a place where nobody will find us or talk about us---“
“And take Adele with you, sir. She will be your companion.” I interrupted. I was shaking all over, but I knew h had to tell him soon.
“Adele? What are you saying, Jane? Adele is going to school. I don’t want her. I want you with me. Do you understand?”
I did, but I slowly shook my head. He was becoming angry, and was staring fiercely at me. He looked as though he was about to lose control. I was not afraid, because I knew I could calm him. I took his had in mine and said,
“Sit down, sir, I’ll talk or listen to you as long as you like.” All this time, I had been trying not to cry, but now I did. It was a great relief.
“Don’t dry, Jane. I can’t stand it. Please be cal.” He cried.
“How can I be calm, when you’re so angry?
“I’m not angry, but I love you so much, and your pale little face looked so stern and decided.” He tried to put his arm around me, but I would not let him.
“Jane!” he said sadly, “you don’t love me, then?”
“Edward, I do love you,” I answered, “more than ever. But this is the last time I can say it. I know now what I have to do. But you’ll be so angry if I tell you.”
“Oh, tell me! If I’m angry, you can always start to cry,” he said, smiling a little.
“Mr. Rochester, I must leave you. I must live a new life, with strangers.”
“Of course, I told you we would leave here. I’ll ignore that silly talk about you leaving me. You’ll be Mrs. Rochester, and I’ll be your husband until I die. We’ll live together happily in the south of France. Now, Jane, don’t shake your head, or I’ll get angry.”
“Sir, your wife is alive,: I said firmly. “If I lived with you, I’d be your mistress, and I can’t do that!”
“Edward, you’re fool!” he said suddenly to himself. “Jane, I haven’t told you the whole story. You must know everything. Listen to me, Jane. Do you know what happened to my family’s money, after my father died?”
“Mrs. Fairfax told me a little about it, sir.”
“Well, as you know, he decided to give my older brother everything. This meant I would be poor for the rest of my life, unless I married a girl who had money. Without asking me, my father decided that I should marry Berths Mason. She was the daughter of my father’s rich friend Jonas Mason. I was young and foolish in those days. When I saw bertha in the West Indies, she was beautiful. I thought I loved her and wanted to marry her. But after the wedding, I learned that Bertha’s mother and younger brother were both mad. Bertha would probably become sick like them. Jane, my father knew all of this, but he did not tell me! Soon after our wedding, bertha began to go mad. I lived with her I other places for four years. By now my father and brother were both dead, so I was married to a mad woman, for the rest of my life!”
“I pity you, sir, I do pity you,” I said sadly. I could not imagine how terrible his life with Bertha Mason must have been.
“Well, sometimes I wanted to shoot myself, but in the end I decided to bring Bertha to live at Thornfield Hall. She has lived here ever since. No one in this house knows the whole truth about her although Mrs. Fairfax knows she is here. But although I pay Grace Poole a lot of money to watch her, Bertha is still clever. She has escaped from her room at night, as you know. The first time, she tried to kill me in a fire. The second time, she visited you in your room. She must have wanted to know who you were. She must have remembered her own wedding day when she saw your dress.”
“And what did you do, sir, after you had brought her here?”
“I traveled all over Europe, Jane. I was looking for a good and wonderful woman to love---“
“But you couldn’t marry, sir,” I said.
“I believed I could. I thought that one day, I would find a woman who would understand my problem, and accept me anyway.”
“Did you find one, sir?”
“No, Jane, but I spent ten long years looking. I tried taking mistresses. But finally, unhappy and disappointed with my life, I returned to Thornfield on a cold winter day. And when my horse slipped and fell on the ice, you came and wanted to help me. In the next weeks, I began to depend on you, a quiet, bird-like young lady, for my happiness in life. I knew you were the only one for me.”
“Don’t talk any more of the past, sir,” I said sadly.
“Jane, you’re right. The future will be much happier. You understand now, don’t you? I’ve spent so much of my life alone, in misery. But now I’ve found you, and you are always in my heart. It was stupid of me to try and marry you without telling you my story. I promise to love you and stay with you forever. Jane, promise me the same.”
When I said nothing, he said, “Why are you silent, Jane?”
This was one of the most terrible moments of my life. I knew that he loved me and I loved him, but I knew I could not live with Mr. Rochester. “Jane, just promise me that you will be mine.”
“Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours,” I said, shaking. He said nothing.
“Jane,” he said, with a gentleness that cut into my soul, “Jane, do you want us to live apart for ever?”
“Yes.”
“Oh Jane, this is a terrible shock. It would not be wrong to love me.”
“It would be wrong to do what you want.”
“Jane, can you imagine my horrible life when you have left me? I will be alone, with no one but that mad woman upstairs. Where will I find friendship, and love, and hope?”
“Sir, you can only trust in God. Live without doing wrong, and die hoping to go to heaven,” I said. I had never said anything harder.
“But all that is impossible without you! And… and you have no family that would be angry, if you lived with me!” he sounded like a desperate man, and I knew what he said was true. But I also knew that I was right to leave him.
He seemed to read my thoughts. He grabbed me and stared fiercely into my eyes. He could have broken me in two with one hand, but he could not break my spirit. I stared firmly back at him, even though I was small and weak.
“Your eyes, Jane,” he said, “are the eyes of a bird. Even if I break your cage, I can’t reach you, you beautiful girl! You’ll fly away from me. But you could choose to fly to me!” he let me go, and only looked at me. How hard it was to resist that look!
“I am going, Mr. Rochester,” I said. My heart was breaking.
“Does my love mean nothing to you? Oh Jane, my hope… my love… my life!” And he threw himself into a chair. I had reached the door and was about to leave, but I could not. I walked back, bent over Mr. Rochester, and kissed his cheek.
“Goodbye, my dear Edward!” I said. “May God protect you!”
“Without you love, Jane, my life is nothing,” he cried, holding out his arms to me. But I turned and ran out of the room.
That night I could not sleep because I was crying so hard. When I woke up, I took a few clothes, and put a little money in a purse. As I went downstairs, I could hear Mr. Rochester in his room, walking around and around. I felt as if all my happiness in life was inside that room, with him. I just had to enter and say, “I will love you and live with you forever!” my hand moved towards the handle of the door. Almost, I opened it. But I stopped myself, and walked quietly out of the house.
Walking on the road. I could not help thinking of how Mr. Rochester would feel when he saw that I had left him. I hated myself for hurting him, even though I knew what I was doing was right. I wanted desperately to be with him, to comfort him, but somehow, I made myself keep walking. When a coach passed, I asked to travel on it until I had no more money. Inside the coach, I cried the most terrible tears of my life. I felt that I would never be happy again. |