Jane Eyre

the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the servants' chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.
    The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed.
    »Take care of him,« said Mr. Rochester to the latter, »and keep him at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?«
    »The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.«
    »Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind – good-bye, Dick.«
    »Fairfax –«
    »Well, what is it?«
    »Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her ––« he stopped and burst into tears.
    »I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,« was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.
    »Yet would to God there was an end of all this!« added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates. This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air, towards a door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call »Jane!« He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me.
    »Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,« he said; »that house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?«
    »It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.«
    »The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,« he answered; »and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now
here
(he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) all is real, sweet, and pure.«
    He strayed down a walk edged with box; with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other, full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southern wood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them.
    »Jane, will you have a flower?«
    He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me.
    »Thank you, sir.«
    »Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm – this placid and balmy atmosphere?«
    »I do, very much.«
    »You have passed a strange night, Jane.«
    »Yes, sir.«
    »And it has made you look pale – were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?«
    »I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.«
    »But I had fastened the door – I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb – my pet lamb – so near a wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe.«
    »Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?«
    »Oh, yes! don't trouble your head about her – put the thing out of your thoughts.«
    »Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.«
    »Never fear – I will take care of myself.«
    »Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?«
    »I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day.«
    »But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance, or wilfully injure you.«
    »Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me – but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.«
    »Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear,