AT length, my dear Eleanor, the terrors on which you have so often
rallied me are become _realities_, and your Catherine is in the midst of
those circumstances to which we may, without exaggeration, give the
epithet “horrible.” I write, as I firmly believe, from the mansion of a
maniac! On a visit to my Aunt Ingram, and carried by her to Thornfield,
the seat of her wealthy neighbour, Mr. Rochester, how shall your
Catherine’s trembling pen unfold the mysteries by which she finds herself
surrounded! No sooner had I entered this battlemented mansion than a
cold chill struck through me, as with a sense of some brooding terror.
All, indeed, was elegance, all splendour! The arches were hung with
Tyrian-dyed curtains. The ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were
of red Bohemian glass. Everywhere were crimson couches and sofas. The
housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax, pointed out to my notice some vases of fine
purple spar, and on all sides were Turkey carpets and large mirrors.
Elegance of taste and fastidious research of ornament could do no more;
but what is luxury to the mind ill at ease? or can a restless conscience
be stilled by red Bohemian glass or pale Parian mantelpieces?
No, alas! too plainly was this conspicuous when, on entering the library,
we found Mr. Rochester—alone! The envied possessor of all this opulence
can be no happy man. He was seated with his head bent on his folded
arms, and when he looked up a morose—almost a malignant—scowl blackened
his features! Hastily beckoning to the governess, who entered with us,
to follow him, he exclaimed, “Oh, hang it all!” in an accent of despair,
and rushed from the chamber. We distinctly heard the doors clanging
behind him as he flew! At dinner, the same hollow reserve; his
conversation entirely confined to the governess (a Miss Eyre), whose
position here your Catherine does not understand, and to whom I
distinctly heard him observe that Miss Blanche Ingram was “an extensive
armful.”
The evening was spent in the lugubrious mockery of pretending to consult
an old gipsy-woman who smoked a short black pipe, and was recognised _by
all_ as Mr. Rochester in disguise. I was conducted by Miss Eyre to my
bedroom—through a long passage, narrow, low, and dim, with two rows of
small black doors, all shut; ’twas like a corridor in some Blue Beard’s
castle. “Hurry, hurry, I hear the chains rattling,” said this strange
girl; whose position, my Eleanor, in this house causes your Catherine
some natural perplexity. When we had reached my chamber, “Be silent,
silent as death,” said Miss Eyre, her finger on her lip and her meagre
body convulsed with some mysterious emotion. “Speak not of what you
hear, do not remember what you see!” and she was gone.
I undressed, after testing the walls for secret panels and looking for
assassins in the usual place, but was haunted all the time by an
unnatural sound of laughter. At length, groping my way to the bed, I
jumped hastily in, and would have sought some suspension of anguish by
creeping far underneath the clothes. But even this refuge was denied to
your wretched Catherine! I could not stretch my limbs; for the sheet, my
dear Eleanor, had been so arranged, in some manner which I do not
understand, as to render this impossible. The laughter seemed to
redouble. I heard a footstep at my door. I hurried on my frock and
shawl and crept into the gallery. A strange dark figure was gliding in
front of me, stooping at each door; and every time it stooped, came _a
low gurgling noise_! Inspired by I know not what desperation of courage,
I rushed on the figure and seized it by the neck. It was Miss Eyre, the
governess, filling the boots of all the guests with water, which she
carried in a can. When she saw me she gave a scream and threw herself
against a door hung with a curtain of Tyrian dye. It yielded, and there
poured into the passage a blue cloud of smoke, with a strong and odious
smell of cigars, into which (and to what company?) she vanished. I
groped my way as well as I might to my own chamber: where each hour the
clocks, as they struck, found an echo in the apprehensive heart of