Chapter-7
After journeying some time, Jane finally reached Thornfield. To her utter surprise, there was nobody to receive her. Jane alighted from the coach and enquired of a man about Thornfield Hall. The man took her luggage and put it in another vehicle. Jane got in. They set off. On the way, Jane asked the coachman, “How far is Thornfield from here?”
“It is about six miles,” said the coachman.
“How long will it take us to reach there?” asked Jane.
“It will probably take us an hour and a half,” responded the coachman. The progress was leisurely. It gave Jane ample time to reflect. She was content to be at length so near the end of her journey. As she leaned back in the comfortable position though not elegant conveyance, she meditated much at her ease. ‘I suppose,’ thought she, judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better. I never lived amongst fine people but once. I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her. I will do my best.’ ‘It is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it and succeeded in pleasing. But with Mrs Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray to God that Mrs Fairfax may not turn out to be a second Mrs Reed. If she does, I cannot bound to stay with her. Let, the worst come to the worst. I can advertise again.’
She let down the window and looked out of it. Millcote was behind them. Judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. They were now, as far as she could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district. She felt they were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic. The roads were heavy and the night was misty. Her conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, she verily believed to two hours.
At last, he turned in his seat and said, “You are not so far from Thornfield now.” Again, she looked out. They were passing a church. She saw its low broad tower against the sky. Its bell was tolling a quarter. She saw a narrow galaxy of lights too on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates. They passed through and the gates clashed to behind us. They now slowly ascended a drive.
After some time, the vehicle reached Thornfield Hall. Led by a maid-servant, Jane entered a room. An old-fashionhed lady was sitting in an armchair. Her name was Mrs Fairfax. The lady welcomed Jane warmly. She asked the maid-servant to give Jane a chair. Then, Jane said to the lady, “I would like to see Mrs Fairfax.”
The lady replied, “If I am not mistaken, you are Jane Eyre. I am Mrs Fairfax. I am the housekeeper of this Thornfield Hall. I corresponded with you regarding a situation here.” Mrs Fairfax was a refined lady. Jane Eyre thanked God because Mrs Fairfax was not like Mrs Reed whom Jane always despired. Mrs Fairfax showed Jane her room which was next to hers. Jane thanked her for the considerate choice. Jane was very tired. After a day full of fatigue and anxiety, she was relaxed to be in a safe position.
Her heart really warmed to the worthy lady as she talked to her. She expressed her sincere wish that Miss Fairfax might find her company as agreeable as she anticipated. Miss Fairfax took her candle and Jane followed her from the room. Firstly, she went to see if the hall-door was fastened. Having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed. Both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house.
A very chill and vaultlike air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude. Jane was glad, when finally ushered into her chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style. After Jane had fastened her door, she gazed leisurely round, and in some measure, effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of her little room. The impulse of gratitude swelled her heart. She knelt down at the bedside and offered up thanks where thanks were due. Her couch had no thorns in it that night. Her solitary room had no fears. At once, weary and content, she slept soon and soundly.
Next day, Jane dressed herself with care as she had to meet her new pupil.
She decided to be plain, for she had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity. She was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not her habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression she made. On the contrary, she ever wished to look as well as she could, and to please as much as her want of beauty would permit. She sometimes regretted that she was not handsome; she sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and some cherry mouth. She desired to be tall, stately and finely developed in figure.
She felt it a misfortune that she was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. Why had she these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say. She could not then distinctly say it to herself. Yet, she had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when she had brushed her hair very smooth, and put on her black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted her clean white tucker.
She thought she should do respectably enough to appear before Miss Fairfax, and that her new pupil would not at least recoil from her with antipathy. Having opened her chamber window and seen that she left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, she ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, she descended the slippery steps of oak. Then, she gained the hall; she halted there for a minute. She looked at some pictures on the walls, at a bronze lamp pendant from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing.
Everything appeared very stately and imposing to her. She was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open. She stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning. The early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields. Advancing onto the lawn, she looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was a three-storey high mansion, of proportion not vast, though considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat. Battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing. They flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong knotty and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the designation of the mansion.
Farther off were hills not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion she had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield. Its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
After enjoying the pleasant fresh air and listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks she returned to her chamber.
The chamber looked such a bright little place to Jane as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, her spirits rose at the view. She thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for her—one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. Her faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir.
There was a knock at the door of her bedroom. When Jane opened the door, Mrs Fairfax entered. She said to Jane, “O dear! how do you do? I am going to let you meet your new pupil. Her name is Adele. She is seven or eight years old. She is Mr Rochester’s ward who is the owner of this entire Thornfield.”
“I am only the housekeeper—the manager. To be sure, I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother’s side or at least my husband was. He was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr Rochester’s mother was a Fairfax, and the second cousin to my husband. But I never presume on the connection. In fact, it is nothing to me. I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper. My employer is always civil and I expect nothing more.”
Saying these words, Miss Fairfax came downstairs, followed by Jane Eyre. Adele, the little, came running up there. She was with her attendant. Adele was brought up in France. When she came to Thornfield, she could hardly speak English, but now she could speak and understand English. Fortunately, Jane Eyre had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady at Lowood school. Jane Eyre shook hands with little Adele and said in French, “O dear! I am your governess. Would you like my company?” Little Adele smiled a little bit. Jane Eyre hugged little Adele to her bosom out of affection. From that day onwards, Jane became little Adele’s governess.
Mr Rochester visited Thornfield rarely but his visits were sudden and unexpected. He was a man of high tastes and preferences. He expected everything in order. That was the reason why Mrs Fairfax, the housekeeper, always kept the rooms in order.
Mrs Fairfax proposed to show Jane over the rest of the house. Jane followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as she went. All was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers she thought were especially grand. Some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once approapriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed as fashions changed.
The imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut looking with their strange carvings of palm branches and heads of cherubs, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow, stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin dust.
All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. Jane liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but she by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds, shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings—all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.
