I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project
of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I
first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a
man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his
choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position,
education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging
and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to
ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their
childhood. All their class held these principles: I supposed,
then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom.
It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to
my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness
of the advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this
plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general
adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all
the world would act as I wished to act.
But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to
my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once
kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study
all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from
the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw
no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had
startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish:
their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as
comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something--was it a
sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?--
that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and
closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially
disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as
if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had
suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something,
I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not
with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to
dare--to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day
she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets
and analyse their nature.
Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride--
saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their
movements of importance--the rest of the party were occupied with
their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and
Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded
their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in
confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according
to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified
puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and
the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir
George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or
county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy
Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn;
and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the
other. Sometimes all, as with one consent, suspended their by-play
to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after all, Mr.
Rochester and--because closely connected with him--Miss Ingram were
the life and soul of the party. If he was absent from the room an
hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his
guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the
vivacity of conversation.