He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to _see_ with those sightless eyes--unavailing and distressing attempt! "Answer me--speak again!" he ordered, imperiously and aloud.
"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the gla.s.s," I said.
"_Who_ is it? _What_ is it? Who speaks?"
"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening," I answered.
"Great G.o.d!--what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?"
"No delusion--no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy."
"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I _cannot_ see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever--whoever you are--be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!"
He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.
"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her."
The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder--neck--waist--I was entwined and gathered to him.
"Is it Jane? _What_ is it? This is her shape--this is her size--"
"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too. G.o.d bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again."
"Jane Eyre!--Jane Eyre," was all he said.
"My dear master," I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out--I am come back to you."
"In truth?--in the flesh? My living Jane?"
"You touch me, sir,--you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"
"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus--and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."
"Which I never will, sir, from this day."
"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned--my life dark, lonely, hopeless--my soul athirst and forbidden to drink--my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go--embrace me, Jane."
"There, sir--and there!""
I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes--I swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.
"It is you--is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"
"I am."
"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"
"No, sir! I am an independent woman now."
"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"
"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."
"Ah! this is practical--this is real!" he cried: "I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart; it puts life into it.--What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?"
"If you won"t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening."
"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?"
"I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress."
"And you will stay with me?"
"Certainly--unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion--to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live."
He replied not: he seemed serious--abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a little embarra.s.sed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms--but he eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed me closer.
"No--no--Jane; you must not go. No--I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence--the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself--I must have you. The world may laugh--may call me absurd, selfish--but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."
"Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."
"Yes--but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair--to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so?
Come--tell me."
"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better."
"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young--you must marry one day."
"I don"t care about being married."
"You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care--but--a sightless block!"
He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarra.s.sment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation.
"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a "faux air" of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles"
feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds" claws or not, I have not yet noticed."
"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere stump--a ghastly sight! Don"t you think so, Jane?"
"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes--and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."
"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrised visage."
"Did you? Don"t tell me so--lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?"
"Yes; with the right eye I see a glow--a ruddy haze."
"And you see the candles?"