I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political
reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had
not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted
to win from him that treasure. This was the point--this was where
the nerve was touched and teased--this was where the fever was
sustained and fed: SHE COULD NOT CHARM HIM.
If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and
sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face,
turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss
Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour,
kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two
tigers--jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured,
I should have admired her--acknowledged her excellence, and been
quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her
superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration--the more
truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch
Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their
repeated failure--herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly
fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly
pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency
repelled further and further what she wished to allure--to witness
THIS, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless
restraint.
Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded.
Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and
fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand,
have quivered keen in his proud heart--have called love into his
stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still,
without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.
"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw
so near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like him,
or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin
her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly,
manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to
me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying
little and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his
face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while
she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself: it
was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres; and
one had but to accept it--to answer what he asked without
pretension, to address him when needful without grimace--and it
increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a
fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are
married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be
managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest
woman the sun shines on."