Jane Eyre

don't think she can ever have been pretty; but for aught I know she may possess originality and strength of character to compensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake off and dare not disregard?« But, having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind's eye, that I thought, »No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,« suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, »
you
are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate you have often felt as if he did; and last night – remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!«
    I well remembered all: language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.
    »Qu'avez-vous, mademoiselle?« said she; »Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!«
    »I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!« She went on sketching, I went on thinking.
    I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving respecting Grace Poole: it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and she spoke truth: I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me: I had more colour and more flesh; more life, more vivacity; because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.
    »Evening approaches,« said I, as I looked towards the window. »I have never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient.«
    When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Lean coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut: darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late: he often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far: beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint: this suited both him and me.
    A tread creaked on the stairs at last; Leah made her appearance; but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room. Thither I repaired, glad at least to go down stairs; for that brought me, I imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.
    »You must want your tea,« said the good lady, as I joined her; »you ate so little at dinner. I am afraid,« she continued, »you are not well to-day: you look flushed and feverish.«
    »Oh, quite well! I never felt better.«
    »Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the tea-pot while I knit off this needle?« Having completed her task, she rose to draw down the blind which she had hitherto kept up; by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight: though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity.
    »It is fair to-night,« said she, as she looked through the panes, »though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for his journey.«
    »Journey! – Is Mr. Rochester gone