University of Virginia Library

45. CHAPTER XLV.
THE HEART OF MISS EYRE.

The immediate excitement of this casualty having subsided,
the Family were left to ponder more serious matters
connected with the visit of Junia. Mrs. Whichcomb and the
council were disposed of, — Clover's villany stood revealed.
What remained, that Richard should not be immediately
summoned, and the reconciliation celebrated? Miss Eyre
remained, broodingly, silently, awfully. She remained
literally with Mrs. Melbourne, who would not suffer her to
leave the house; — she remained mystically in all hearts
and apprehensions. Why should not the Family throw
itself upon its intuitions, and act at once in obedience
thereto? It was not a way it had, — if we except Barbara,
who had such a way, and put on her hat to execute it. But
Roscoe, who was pruning trees in the front yard, prevented
her; — Roscoe, the silent and unsocial one, reputed so queer
and strange. “Plumy Alicia,” said he, “has not spoken.
If Richard is recalled, she must be banished; his exoneration
is her perdition. We must wait a little. There are
things to be explained yet. Who of us can pretend to
fathom all this mystery?” Barbara loved Roscoe and
yielded to him.

Melicent and Junia both felt, and they all felt, what
Roscoe expressed. “God will help us,” said Junia. “Let
us wait on him.” “I can wait, if you can,” responded
Melicent.

What would Miss Eyre do? We have said she betrayed
extreme emotion at the sight of Junia and Melicent. What
did she see at that moment? She saw an old, fond love,
intent, not upon the possession but the welfare of the
beloved; she saw hopelessness pleading with aversion in
behalf of neglect; she saw virtue seeking to acquit turpitude
to conscience; disinterestedness launched on destruction
to render deliverance. She saw Junia supplicating Melicent
for Richard; she saw woman's heart yielding heroically to
rival supremacy; she saw a young girl's gushing, undying
affection, sacrificing itself on the altar of another's love.
She beheld cheerfulness where she anticipated moodiness,
constancy where she had prophesied hatred; and was the
witness of a defence from a quarter which to her own mind
boded nothing but scorn and vengeance.

The sight overcame her; its novelty, mystery, pathos,
amazed her; its incantation spun through all her frame.
But while it swept like a wind across the forest of her
sensibilities, we are not prepared to say it upturned a single
root of her purpose.

The next day, being alone with Mrs. Melbourne, she
burst into tears.

“I do not wonder you feel bad,” said her old mistress.
“If I were not more than usually sustained, I should cry too.
What a height of impudence and vulgarity!”

Miss Eyre made no answer.

“Try the camphor-bottle; — oh dear, how wicked is man!
how unfeeling are the lower orders! That Richard would
kill you, if he were left to himself one moment! I have
seen him strike a horse that was all in a foam of sweat. —
Open the window, where you can breathe.” This did not
abate Miss Eyre's distress.

“I do not blame you, Plumy Alicia,” continued her comforter.

“I cannot; I have it not in my heart to see the least
of God's creatures suffer, except some who deserve it. —
Well, I will not, — I know you are tender on that point.
Don't cry so, dear girl! you shall marry Richard. Lie
on my bed, — smell of this chamomile. If Richard has
wronged you, and you still love him, you shall have him.
I know we cannot help our feelings. When I was young —
oh God forgive me! — There, there; I will never speak
against Richard again.”

Miss Eyre wept herself to sleep, and sank from convulsions
to repose.

Mrs. Melbourne smoothed her hair and dress, and sat
tenderly by her side. “I did not know,” she said within
herself, “she could feel so much. But she shall not be disappointed.
What could have induced that country girl to
undertake such a thing? Why is she sick? Do we not
see God's finger in it? — That Glendar should be rejected,
and that bad man promoted, is impossible.”

When Miss Eyre awoke, it was with a manner apparently
averted from Mrs. Melbourne; so much so that this lady
regarded her with surprise.

“Why don't you speak?” she said.

“I can't to you,” replied Miss Eyre.

“Why not to me? I am your friend. What are you
going to do?” She asked this with consternation, as Miss
Eyre, with hidden determination in her eye, left the bed.

“To see Junia,” answered Miss Eyre.

“She has told her story,” murmured Mrs. Melbourne.

“What if there were some truth in it?” rejoined the
other.

Mrs. Melbourne would have screamed; but she hushed
herself, and said, “Plumy Alicia, how rash! Will you
ruin yourself, and disgrace us all? May she not have

deceived? There is nothing too bad for some people to do!
Who sent her here, — who? I wish the truth might be told,
— all the truth, — and I am glad there are a few honest
ears to hear it!”

Miss Eyre disappeared. She went to the bed-side of
Junia.

Junia looked up, with a serene, rill-like smile, and laid
her thin, transparent hand outside the bed, as it were inviting
Miss Eyre's into it.

“Did you love Richard?” said Miss Eyre.

“You know I loved him,” replied Junia.

“And you gave him up?”

“God took him, and gave him to another.”

“I am not religious. Tell Mrs. Melbourne of that.
Had you no hatred to him for leaving you?”

“He never left me; — I only clung to him.”

“In that clinging, Junia, was there not joy, rapture,
life?”

“Alas, dear Plumy Alicia, yes!”

“But you gave it all up, and have helped another one to
cling where you were clinging, and to exult in what was
your bliss?”

“She had a better right than I. Besides, his happiness
was concerned, and her happiness, and the happiness of so
many. And, dear Plumy Alicia, I have never been so happy
as I am now; — I have done no more than my duty, and
what God would have me do. You will not make Richard
unhappy, will you? You will not do anything to distress
his noble spirit, will you? You have been weeping; you
will never weep again when Richard is happy; — you will be
happy too.”

Miss Eyre could not answer; she meditated.

Junia resumed. “I could not go into the next world, —

and we must all go there, — with the sin of unkindness to
Richard, and Melicent, and all these excellent ones, on my
soul.”

Miss Eyre withdrew to the window, and sat where Melicent
sat and Junia kneeled.

The same day, Miss Rowena did slip away to Willow
Croft, but simply to tell them how Junia was, and to tell
Richard how nobly she had vindicated him. She dared
only allude to Miss Eyre; and Richard, perhaps, wished
her to do no more than that. He had himself a feeling
about Miss Eyre which Miss Rowena could not fathom.

Another night passed in the Family, — a night of thick,
silent darkness, when the clouds seem to be in the streets,
and walking about the houses, — when the windows all
become black mirrors of things in the room, and if the
heart is sad, these images look very gloomy. The whisking
of wind in the trees, or the pattering of rain on the
piazza, would have been a relief. Mrs. Melbourne was very
melancholy, and Miss Eyre very pale.

Junia was a little day-time in her own heart and chamber,
— a pleasant taper of resignation and patience; and she
made Melicent and Barbara, who sat with her, feel hopeful
and cheerful.

The next morning, Miss Eyre sought a private moment
with Melicent. She said, “Neither you nor I can abide
this much longer. I do not speak. Do you wish me to?
Do you wish me to open my mouth? Do you wish to look
through fair lips and beautiful teeth — they say I have
them, — and beyond the smoothness of my tongue, into the
depths of what I am, — into here, — into this, — which
they call a heart?”

“Let me see everything it is in your power to show, that
will be of any use to see,” replied Melicent.

“Under this roof,” continued Miss Eyre, “that now
accuses me, derived I the elements of my crime. Some of
them, — not all. Here were sown the seeds of the bitter
night-shade you now taste in me. Not you, gentle, great
one; — not Barbara; — not the Governor. Mrs. Melbourne
taught me the essential worthlessness of that large class of
people among whom I was born, and with whom it might be
my fortune to spend my days. Mrs. Melbourne is generous,
humane, tender-hearted. I am under a thousand obligations
to her kindness; but she despises the lower orders, and
she would have me despise, betray, disinherit my own kith
and kin. I was ambitious, — proud, they call it. What is
that? You know not. You were born great. You cannot
step out without stepping into littleness. Then how easy,
how pleasant, to take a few steps in that direction, — merely
passing from Wilton carpets to dusty streets, — and go
home to your own greatness! But for me, born little, to
step into greatness, — how hard, how hazardous! Then to
go home to littleness, — to creep back, after a pleasant
exaltation, into one's mean hovel, — you know not what
that is!

“Then there is love. O burden, unreäcting fatality, organic
sigh, of woman! But whom love? Where my
hearth-stone? Who lie in these arms? You cannot understand
this. You are in a gallery of fine portraits, and can
take any one. I am surrounded by daubs, and must hunt
for what is tolerable. Have I no desire for what is excellent?
Pulsates not every fibre of this woman's frame for
the embrace of purity, elevation, nobleness? I saw Richard,
— I liked him; — I tell you I liked him! He united
the loftiness of the higher classes with the solid virtues of
his own. I sprang towards him, in my heart, wantonly
wildly. His reserve and moderation the rather inflamed

me. I intrigued, — yes, I was trained to that. What selfishness
of voluptuousness, what shallowness of mediocrity,
what cravings of the hod-clopperhood, have importuned for
me, and sighed at my feet, and cajoled my vanity! I tortured
him. The Redferns tortured me, more than you
know of, — more than I can relate. Virtue, — I am not
virtuous! Is Mrs. Melbourne, who has so perverted my
existence, virtuous? Is Fiddledeeana Redfern, who has so
wounded every womanly sensibility within me, virtuous?
Do not look so upbraidingly at me!”

“I do not upbraid you. I am only deeply concerned in
what you say.”

“Give me your smelling-bottle. I am not going to faint.
I want to carry off my excitement with spirit. You cannot
think of my faults worse than I suffer from them. I abhor
Clover; but he menaced me, — menaced not only my happiness,
but even my life. I should support his cause, he
said, or he would overrun me, — he would destroy me. He
would have plunged me into the depths of Merrywater.
Well if he had! I could not endure Richard's union with
you. Hear the whole, and then do with me as you will. It
rankled here. I could not help it.”

“You mean,” said Melicent, “you did not help it. You
never practised self-control; you had no religious humility.”

“Practised nothing, — had nothing, that you call good.
No, no! Little of that has addressed itself to me. Good
men, — your good men, — do not speak to me; — bad
men are false and selfish with me. My regard for Richard
was the only good thing of my life! I believed he
loved me; at least, I believed I could make him love
me, — that I had made him love me. Others managed for
my approbation, — why should I not for his? Glendar has

adored my smile, — why should I not fawn on Richard's
heart? You are interested, — you may well be. I come to
the quick of the thing. I have told no untruths about Richard!
— Do not destroy your fan; you may be glad to use
it before I have done. — Have you not learned that nobody
tells lies? They tell truths so that they shall seem a lie,
— that is all. I let untruths be told; — or rather, surrounded
by stupidity and fanaticism, I had only to let the false impressions
of people take their own course. I gave to truth
a little of the rouge, the twinkle, the fine airs, of falsehood,
and I had no further trouble. I knew not precisely the nature
of his visits at the sick chamber of Violet; nor did I
care to know, — it was little to me, any way. Mrs. Whichcomb
believed, or made herself believe, he had other objects
than charity; and she made more than one believe it, too.
The lower orders have their faults and vices. They do not
understand nobleness, or intellectuality, or cultured simplicity
and freedom. They misappreciate you, Melicent, and
your father, and your church, and your minister, and your
whole social circle and position. It is not a month since,
down on the Islands, I heard a man say he hoped the Governor
would come to his last crust, — he did not care how
soon! How easy, then, to pervert a visit to a sick chamber!
I knew Junia loved Richard; and that I did care to know.
I first dreaded, then hated her. And afterwards, so far as
his connection with you was concerned, I thought she would
hate him. Here I was mistaken. Of that, presently.”

“You acquit Richard of the aspersions that have been
thrown upon him?” said Melicent, with some earnestness.

“Do not be impassioned; — that is reserved for me. Junia
disappointed me; she appalled me; she has wrung my heart,
— wrung its animosity, its fire, its intention, all out of it.
She is the first gleam of light in this dark world of affections

and passions that surrounds me. As Clover says, she has
crushed me! Sorrow, remorse, hurtle pitilessly through this
ruin of my being. Richard is too innocent, — too harmless.
If he had only been guilty, — not that, — if he had
been selfish or forward, — I should have loved him more: —
nay, I should have scorned him! He has his weak points;
and his weak ones are my strong ones, and there I should
have mastered him, but for a something beyond. — What is
that something?”

“Religion, — Conscience, — God.”

“I did not ask to be told of that. I only asked in a
reverie sort of way. Richard relies on the simplicity of
things, and what he supposes to be the goodness of men.
He deceives himself.”

“Are you never deceived?”

“Richard is sorry for me. He knows I am not exempt
from pangs. He feels committed, not to me, but to my misery.
You can break a man's heart, sometimes, by breaking
your own.”

“Angelic Richard! Wicked, wicked Plumy Alicia!”

“Not on purpose, — not altogether with guile. — I was
broken. He has even now to step over my desolation to
reach you.”

Melicent raised her handkerchief to her face.

“You can weep, Melicent. I have wept. I have
drained myself dry, as the stubble after reaping.

“Did Richard have no intention and respect of love
towards me? Could I raise none such? Ah! he said he
detested me! I have been deceived, — I deceived myself.
Junia! Junia! thou wert a woman; I was a —

“Where am I? Whither shall I turn? The world, that
clutched at my story, and, bartering its respect for its envy,

patronized my cause, and poured its venom on Richard, will
whirl upon me.”

“Is there not such a thing as duty?”

“Junia said so, and you say so; and I suppose it is so.”

“You speak,” said Melicent, “as if there were no goodness.
Is there none in the Church, — none in the Griped
Hand, — none in the little children, — none in every street
of the city, or in a thousand families, and in innumerable
individuals?”

“Yes, there are good, honest men and women among
what are called the lower orders, — young men and young
women, whom I have associated with, and worked with, —
who would not do a wrong thing for the world, — who are
goodness itself, more than you know of. But I must, forsooth,
look down upon them! I must see among them a
lower order of taste and feeling! And, in fact, I must find
amongst many of them an ignorant, indeed, but systematic
depreciation of what is ever and deeply to my eye socially
bright and glorious, the Governor's Family. Who of them
could afford me that sympathy which my heart craved, or
my judgment would select? I must either marry a man
whom I despised, or be the mistress of a man who despised
me. I would do and be neither. A man like Richard, Lumberer
though he be, can marry the Governor's daughter!”

“What if you should marry the Governor's son?” said
Melicent, playfully. “There is Brother Roscoe, the odd
one. He used to like you; he left his books to be with
you; he used to swing you under the elms, and run of
your errands. He is not fond of our society; he attaches
himself to none of the young ladies that visit us. In all
this dreadful affair, I have noticed that he abstained from
reproaching you. I am not certain but you carried away a
portion of his heart.”

“Are you willing that I should marry him?” asked Miss
Eyre.

“Indeed, I am.”

“Pure, good, magnanimous Melicent, how I thank you,
— how I love you — how I am all vanquished again, —
killed by goodness! Not that I will marry him; I will not,
— never, never! — but that you reveal yourself so, — you
look out so prettily, and so Junia-like!”

“Then you give me Richard, if I give you Roscoe?”
This, also, playfully.

“Richard is all yours, — was ever yours; his fair, large
being, hidden to me, broods over you. I am healed, not by
your promises, but by your goodness. Richard will see no
bruises in me. But to the world I am dead, — I must be as
dead. How can I be obscure enough? How shall I escape
Mrs. Melbourne? Cousin Rowena, and Barbara, and all
of you, must loathe me. I do not ask you to save me.
Junia yielded up all her love for you; — you yield all the
sentiments of your rank for me. What is left for me but
to yield myself to — fate?

“God —”

“I am humbled; — teach me to be pious.”

“And to my discretion.”

“I am a child; — lead me where you will.”

“I can take care of Mrs. Melbourne, and our family can
take care of itself, and Providence will take care of the
world.”