"'Oh,' returned the fairy, 'that does not signify! Here is a
talisman will remove all difficulties;' and she held out a pretty
gold ring. 'Put it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left
hand, and I am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth,
and make our own heaven yonder.' She nodded again at the moon. The
ring, Adele, is in my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a
sovereign: but I mean soon to change it to a ring again."
"But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the
fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?"
"Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously.
Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part,
evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr.
Rochester "un vrai menteur," and assuring him that she made no
account whatever of his "contes de fee," and that "du reste, il n'y
avait pas de fees, et quand meme il y en avait:" she was sure they
would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live
with him in the moon.
The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr.
Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was
ordered to choose half-a-dozen dresses. I hated the business, I
begged leave to defer it: no--it should be gone through with now.
By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the
half-dozen to two: these however, he vowed he would select himself.
With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed
on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink
satin. I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as
well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should
certainly never venture to wear his choice. With infinite
difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make
an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and pearl-grey silk.
"It might pass for the present," he said; "but he would yet see me
glittering like a parterre."
Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a
jewellers shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned
with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the
carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in
the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten--the
letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt
me and make me his legatee. "It would, indeed, be a relief," I
thought, "if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear
being dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second
Danae with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write
to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going
to be married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day
bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better
endure to be kept by him now." And somewhat relieved by this idea
(which I failed not to execute that day), I ventured once more to
meet my master's and lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought
mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought
his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment,
bestow on a slave his gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his
hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to
him red with the passionate pressure.