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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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165 She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request:- ‘She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.’ From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting. The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated. Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded ‘the tableau of the whole’; whereupon the curtain again descended. On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished. Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance the rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters. ‘Bridewell!’ exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved. A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting. ‘Do you know,’ said she, ‘that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!’ ‘Is all the soot washed from my face?’ he asked, turning it towards her. ‘Alas! yes: the more’s the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.’ ‘You would like a hero of the road then?’ ‘An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.’ ‘Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses.’ She giggled, and her colour rose. |
