Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to
think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr.
Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was,
the idea could not be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has been
young once; her youth would be contemporary with her master's: Mrs.
Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I 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; Adele 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, Adele, 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."