"No, no--let us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without waiting
to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall
door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of
admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done,
he too departed.
I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to
which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in,
fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded--not to
weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but--mechanically
to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I
had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat
down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my
head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only
heard, seen, moved--followed up and down where I was led or dragged-
-watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure:
but NOW, I THOUGHT.
The morning had been a quiet morning enough--all except the brief
scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been
noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no
dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words
had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made;
some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers,
explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth
had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen;
the intruders were gone, and all was over.
I was in my own room as usual--just myself, without obvious change:
nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where
was the Jane Eyre of yesterday?--where was her life?--where were her
prospects?
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman--almost a bride,
was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects
were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white
December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples,
drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a
frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-
day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve
hours since waved leafy and flagrant as groves between the tropics,
now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway.
My hopes were all dead--struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one
night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on
my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay
stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my
love: that feeling which was my master's--which he had created; it
shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle;
sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr.
Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh,
never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted--confidence
destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was
not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I
would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless
truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: THAT
I perceived well. When--how--whither, I could not yet discern; but
he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real
affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only
fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I
should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to
him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct!