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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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234 ‘Ask something more,’ he said presently; ‘it is my delight to be entreated, and to yield.’ I was again ready with my request. ‘Communicate your intentions to Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman.’ ‘Go to your room, and put on your bonnet,’ he replied. ‘I mean you to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady’s understanding. Did she think, Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it well lost?’ ‘I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir.’ ‘Station! station!- your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.- Go.’ I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading her morning portion of Scripture-the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester’s announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the table. ‘I feel so astonished,’ she began, ‘I hardly know what to say to you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don’t laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month you would be his wife.’ ‘He has said the same thing to me,’ I replied. ‘He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?’ ‘Yes.’ She looked at me bewildered. ‘I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?’ ‘He tells me so.’ She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma. |
