Jane

“ The torment, the uncertainty did not cease with the day, and it brought a rich colour to her pale face, rarely seen there; never save in moments of deep emotion. As she entered Lady Jane’s presence with this bloom on her cheeks and the purple light shining from her magnificent hair, her handsome gown rustling behind her and her fine figure drawn to its full height, even Jane, with all her prejudice, was struck with her real grandeur. ”

“ Ah, Jane, Jane! I shall need your help. I want it so greatly, and not only your help, Jane—but YOU—you, yourself. Ah, how I want you! These three days have been one continual ache of loneliness, because you were not there; and life began to live and move again, when you returned. And yet it has been so hard, waiting all these hours to speak. I have so much to tell you, Jane, of all you are to me—all you have become to me, since the night of the concert. Ah, how can I express it? I have never had any big things in my life; all has been more or less trivial—on the surface. ”

“ Jane looked into the sympathetic eyes of the ambassador's wife, and what she found there was like a draft of water to her parched soul. The elder woman, smiling down into the white face, wherein the large brown eyes burned unnaturally bright, saw a trembling of the lips instantly conquered by a rallying will, and she patted the small hand hearteningly.
"Dear lady," Jane began, almost as a little child, "I must get out of Paris, and I've come to you to help me. Every way is closed except through you." ”

“ Jane put her arms under the shoulders of a broken old negress—mother or wife—clinging to one still body on a blanket-covered packing case, and handed her tenderly to another of the girls. He caught one full glance at the woman's face, ravaged with a life's hard unhappiness, printed now with this vaster dumb suffering. The sharp clear brilliance of Southern sunshine drove in parallel golden bars from a western window. Outside, the gay blue of early summer, the beauty and joy; within, this man-made house of death. ”

“ Jane had never looked better than she did on this March day, standing on the summit of the Great Pyramid. Strong, brown, and well-knit, a reliable mind in a capable body, the undeniable plainness of her face redeemed by its kindly expression of interest and enjoyment; her wide, pleasant smile revealing her fine white teeth, witnesses to her perfect soundness and health, within and without. ”

“ His enormous house, which she persisted in believing to be Jane’s, depressed her. The really phenomenal harmony of its richness escaped her. The regal vistas of its apartments, all warmed and glowing and made by her son’s consummate artistry habitable left her cold. The fine tapestries, the riot of blended colour, the audacious effects of light and shadow, the profusion of precious lustrous silks and gleaming brocades, wearied her gaze. Knowing well enough, who better, good things when she saw them, there were here too many to look at. ”

“ And Jane has her arms round her Aunt Patty, and her face, so unlike the gentle portrait, is troubled and brooding, a sullen ugly little face with something strange, half wild, that recalls her father and frightens the good woman who holds her close and goes on answering questions about her sister Isabel. And then I think of Mrs. Carpenter not as Jane’s mother, but as the daughter of old Mrs. Forbes of the Grey House, and I am again bewildered. Those people in St. Mary’s Plains, Jane’s grandmother, her aunts and her uncle, were people of sense and character and taste. ”

“ She was a dull girl, and it took her some time to understand what Jane had really said to her.
"Why, why—" she stammered, "you have always done as you were told before, and—I'll tell mother," she added, an ugly frown distorting her face. "She'll not allow you to be impertinent to me, you know."
"It is quite impossible for me to be impertinent to you, Gwendolen," said Jane, drawing up her little figure superbly. "One cannot be impertinent to one's equals. I'll hook up your frock for you, if you like, because you are my cousin, and I ought on that account to be willing to be civil to you. ”

“ At that distance, more sure than Mary, she knew what was going to happen. More sure than either of them, she knew. When suddenly, as though some leaping power had swept upon him unexpectedly, he took her in his arms and their heads were one together, linked with his kisses, Jane had known of it more surely than he.
Feeling those kisses on her own lips, on her eyes, her throat, and like hammers beating in her heart, Jane buried her face in the heather but did not know that she moaned with pain. ”

“ And so, although Jane frowned upon John on every suitable occasion, John the more determinedly smiled upon Jane, and she, being young and lovely and, after all, a mere woman, grew (quite stealthily) prettier and sweeter and more worthy to be smiled upon with every passing hour. And this despite the vinegar and gall which she was forced to mingle with her daily food partaken of in the Belknap kitchen under the glowering eyes of Mary MacGrotty. ”

“ Jane leaned her forehead on the window-sill. The moonlight fell on the heavy coils of her brown hair. The scent of the magnolia blooms rose in fragrance around her. The song of a nightingale purled and thrilled in an adjacent wood. The lonely years of the past, the perplexing moments of the present, the uncertain vistas of the future, all rolled away. She sailed with Garth upon a golden ocean far removed from the shores of time. For love is eternal; and the birth of love frees the spirit from all limitations of the flesh. ”

“ LADY JANE’S CHRISTMAS PRESENTS Christmas came and went; and whatever hopes, desires, or regrets filled the loving little heart of Lady Jane, the child kept them to herself, and was outwardly as bright and cheerful as on other days, although Pepsie, who watched her closely, thought that she detected a wistfulness in her eyes, and, at times, a sad note in the music of her happy voice. If the affection that finds expression in numerous Christmas gifts can make a child contented, Lady Jane had certainly no reason to complain. ”

“ He swept Jane out of the circle of light from the street lamp, into the black shadow of the Farraday shrubbery, and into a breathless embrace. "You—little—rascal—" he said, huskily, gasping a trifle as he always did in moments of high emotion. "You—little—witch! Now I've got you—and I'm going to keep you! Now I guess you'll listen to what I've got to say and—and answer me!" His broad, warm face was coming inexorably nearer; life—the pleasant and placid pattern of Wetherby Ridge—was coming inexorably nearer; life with melted marshmallows floating on its surface!
"Oh, Marty, please!" ”

“ “You are going, Jane?”
“I am going, sir.”
“You are leaving me?”
“Yes.”
“You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?”
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate firmly, “I am going.”
“Jane!”
“Mr. Rochester!”
“Withdraw, then,—I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings—think of me.”
He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. “Oh, Jane! my hope—my love—my life!” ”

“ When she arose to go she took both his hands in hers and whispered: "'Mary.' I like the name on your lips," and then glancing hurriedly over her shoulder to see if Jane and I were looking, lifted her face to him and ran after us.
We were a little in advance of the princess, and, as we walked along, Jane said under her breath: "Now look out for trouble; it will come quickly, and I fear for Master Brandon more than any one. He has made a noble fight against her and against himself, and it is no wonder she loves him." ”

“ I am not at all sure that I have a just feeling for that American life of Jane’s. I have put down the facts as she told them to me and have described the people there as they came into being for me, from her talk, but how am I to know that they were really like that? Perhaps had I seen them with my own eyes I should have found them quite different: narrow, dull people with shrill twanging voices and queer American mannerisms. It may be that they would have bored me as they bored Mrs. Carpenter. St. Mary’s Plains I have seen for myself, but what did I see? ”

“ Before madame sent her out, she gave Lady Jane instructions in the most imperative manner. “She must never on any account speak of Good Children Street, of Madelon or Pepsie, of the d’Hautreves, of Gex, or the Paichoux, or of any one she had ever known there. She must not talk with people, and, above all, she must never tell her name, nor where she lived. She must only sing and hold out her hand. Sometimes she might cry if she wanted to, but she must never laugh.” ”

“ Jane was one, or two-and-twenty by now—a pale, small-eyed maiden with a fine, strong body and a great appetite for manual work. There was no taint from her mother in her and she lived out of doors for choice and loved a hard job. She'd pile the dry-built, granite walls with any man, and do so much as him in a day; and folk, looking on her, foretold that she'd be rich beyond dreams, but never know how to get a pennyworth of pleasure out of all her money. ”

“ In this way Tante Modeste surmounted all difficulties, and the next morning Lady Jane, completely enveloped in a little pink domino, with a tiny pink mask carefully fastened over her rosy face, and her blue eyes wide with delight and wonder sparkling through the two holes, was lifted into the milk cart with the brood of little Paichoux, and with many good-byes to poor forlorn Pepsie and to Tony, who was standing dejectedly on one leg, the happy child was rattled away in the bright sunlight, through the merry, noisy crowd, to that center of every delight, Canal Street, on Mardi-gras. ”

“ When the quaint little old man, in his antiquated black suit, a relic of other and better days, entered the room, with the beautiful child, rosy and bareheaded, her yellow hair flying out like spun silk, and her dainty though disordered dress plainly showing her superior position, every eye was turned upon him, and Gex felt the stirrings of old pride and ambition, as he placed a chair with great ceremony, and lifted Lady Jane into it. ”

“ Jane found great peace and help from those straight, slim trees. They were so unfettered, so upstanding, so sure. She repeated over and over:
"Hast thou ne'er known the longings—
Ambitions vain desires—
The hope, the fear, the yearning
Which mortal man inspires?"
She gathered into her being all the calm of Nature, strength from her out-of-door life, wisdom out of silence and Baby's talk, but yet she could not bring herself to send for Jerry. She knew that both of these men were suffering, as they waited for her answer; she wanted not to hurt them, and still—she hesitated. ”

“ Every Paichoux had remembered Lady Jane, and a finer array of picture books, dolls, and toys was never spread before a happier child; but the presents which pleased her most were a small music box from Madelon, a tiny silver thimble from Pepsie, and Mam’selle Diane’s little duckling. These she kept always among her treasures. ”

“ Am I accurate, Jane?"
"Quite," she said calmly.
"She is forced to take a mere job to buy food. Enter a brilliant but impoverished artist, with the job in his right hand. Heroine toils by day that she may create by night. Midnight oil, cold tenement room, you know. Abraham Lincoln stuff."
"Jane, while you were working for all of us, did you write, too?"
Jane nodded.
"Don't interrupt, Bobs. Enter hero—a great critic—a literary light. Reads heroine's work—hails her genius of the age—rushes her to publishers, who press gold upon her and accept her immortal opus!" ”

“ My admiration for Mary Ellen increased.
As I slowly climbed the stairs for bed, visions of Jane hovered in the darkness above me—airy rainbows, with Jane's laughing face peering between the bars of pink and gold. I had never known a little girl before, and Jane embodied all things frail and exquisite.
When I entered our room Angel was sitting on the side of the bed, pulling his shirt over his head. The Seraph already slept in his place next the wall. ”

“ James heaved up his physicianly hands and eyes.
“Right to keep it from her, Lady Jane! I would not for the world allow it to reach her ladyship in her present state of health; we don’t know what the consequences might be. My reputation is at stake, my lady.”
Jane bowed her head, and entered her father’s room. The earl lay with his eyes closed, breathing heavily. Death was on his face; Jane saw that at the first glance. The slight movement she made caused him to open them: a joyful ray of gladness flashed into his countenance, and he feebly put out his hand. ”

“ Elizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be said, for the present.
"I must go instantly to my mother;" she cried. "I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude; or allow her to hear it from any one but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! ”

“ People began to sway and mutter, to push and surge. Jane felt herself lifted and swung to her feet on the seat where she had been sitting, and the Irishman's big body was spread like a shield before her. His hands were clamped upon the thin shoulders of the girl in the middy blouse, but he twisted his head to speak to Jane. ”