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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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257 Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: ‘Bigamy is an ugly word!- I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out- manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me,- perhaps the last. I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:- what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick!- never fear me!- I’d almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a mad-woman and a drunkard!- as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner-pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole’s patient, and my wife! You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human. This girl,’ he continued, looking at me, ‘knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal, and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of you-follow!’ Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage. ‘Take it back to the coach-house, John,’ said Mr. Rochester coolly: ‘it will not be wanted to-day.’ At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us. ‘To the right-about-every soul!’ cried the master; ‘away with your congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!- they are fifteen years too late!’ He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, |
