Is this my mustard-seed?1 This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?’ (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.)
‘It is Jane Eyre, sir.’
‘Soon to be Jane Rochester,’ he added: ‘in four weeks, Janet; not a day more. Do you hear that?’
I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than was consistent with joy – something that smote and stunned: it was, I think, almost fear.
‘You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?’
‘Because you gave me a new name – Jane Rochester; and it seems so strange.’
‘Yes, Mrs Rochester,’ said he; ‘young Mrs Rochester – Fairfax Rochester’s girl-bride.’
‘It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy-tale – a day-dream.’
‘Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his keeping – heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope to pour them into your lap:2 for every privilege, every attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer’s daughter, if about to marry her.’
‘Oh, sir! – never mind jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not have them.’
‘I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on your forehead – which it will become: for nature, at least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings.’
‘No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in another strain. Don’t address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain, Quakerish governess.’
‘You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart – delicate and a?rial.’
‘Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir – or you are sneering. For God’s sake, don’t be ironical!’
‘I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too,’ he went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. ‘I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.’
‘And then you won’t know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin’s jacket – a jay in borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady’s robe; and I don’t call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don’t flatter me.’
He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. ‘This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others.’
‘Shall I travel? – and with you, sir?’
‘You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph’s foot3 shall step also. Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with a very angel as my comforter.’
I laughed at him as he said this. ‘I am not an angel,’ I asserted; ‘and I will not be one till I die: