<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII—CONCLUSION</h2>
<p>Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I,
the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back
from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where
Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I
said—</p>
<p>“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this
morning.” The housekeeper and her husband were both
of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any
time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without
incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some
shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of
wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at
me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens
roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended
in air; and for the same space of time John’s knives also
had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over
the roast, said only—</p>
<p>“Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!”</p>
<p>A short time after she pursued—“I seed you go out
with the master, but I didn’t know you were gone to church
to be wed;” and she basted away. John, when I turned
to him, was grinning from ear to ear.</p>
<p>“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said: “I
knew what Mr. Edward” (John was an old servant, and had
known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore,
he often gave him his Christian name)—“I knew what
Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long
neither: and he’s done right, for aught I know. I
wish you joy, Miss!” and he politely pulled his
forelock.</p>
<p>“Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give
you and Mary this.” I put into his hand a five-pound
note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the
kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time
after, I caught the words—</p>
<p>“She’ll happen do better for him nor ony
o’t’ grand ladies.” And again, “If
she ben’t one o’ th’ handsomest, she’s
noan faâl and varry good-natured; and i’ his een
she’s fair beautiful, onybody may see that.”</p>
<p>I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say
what I had done: fully explaining also why I had thus
acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly.
Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the
honeymoon, and then she would come and see me.</p>
<p>“She had better not wait till then, Jane,” said
Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him; “if she does,
she will be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our life long:
its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.”</p>
<p>How St. John received the news, I don’t know: he never
answered the letter in which I communicated it: yet six months
after he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr.
Rochester’s name or alluding to my marriage. His
letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He
has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence
ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who
live without God in the world, and only mind earthly things.</p>
<p>You have not quite forgotten little Adèle, have you,
reader? I had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr.
Rochester, to go and see her at the school where he had placed
her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me
much. She looked pale and thin: she said she was not
happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too
strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I
took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once
more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were
now required by another—my husband needed them all.
So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system,
and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing
her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for
anything that could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled
in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress
in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education
corrected in a great measure her French defects; and when she
left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion:
docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful
attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any
little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.</p>
<p>My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience
of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those
whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and
I have done.</p>
<p>I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to
live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I
hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can
express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is
mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever
more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I
know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of
mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that
beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever
together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as
in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all
day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an
audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all
his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in
character—perfect concord is the result.</p>
<p>Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our
union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very
near—that knit us so very close: for I was then his vision,
as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he
often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw
nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of
gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of
field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape
before us; of the weather round us—and impressing by sound
on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye.
Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of
conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he
wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services,
most full, most exquisite, even though sad—because he
claimed these services without painful shame or damping
humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no
reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so
fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest
wishes.</p>
<p>One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a
letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and
said—“Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your
neck?”</p>
<p>I had a gold watch-chain: I answered “Yes.”</p>
<p>“And have you a pale blue dress on?”</p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<SPAN href="images/p435b.jpg">
<ANTIMG alt="And have you a pale blue dress on?" src="images/p435s.jpg" /></SPAN></p>
<p>I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had
fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense;
and that now he was sure of it.</p>
<p>He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an
eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that
one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read
or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the
hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him—the earth no
longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms,
he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they
once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that
occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had
tempered judgment with mercy.</p>
<p>My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because
those we most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary
Rivers are both married: alternately, once every year, they come
to see us, and we go to see them. Diana’s husband is
a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good man.
Mary’s is a clergyman, a college friend of her
brother’s, and, from his attainments and principles, worthy
of the connection. Both Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton
love their wives, and are loved by them.</p>
<p>As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to
India. He entered on the path he had marked for himself; he
pursues it still. A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer
never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and
devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his
race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down
like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber
it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be
ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior
Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of
Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks
but for Christ, when he says—“Whosoever will come
after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow
me.” His is the ambition of the high master-spirit,
which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are
redeemed from the earth—who stand without fault before the
throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb,
who are called, and chosen, and faithful.</p>
<p>St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself
has hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its
close: his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last
letter I received from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet
filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward,
his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger’s
hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful
servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord.
And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St.
John’s last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart
will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith
steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this—</p>
<p>“My Master,” he says, “has forewarned
me. Daily He announces more distinctly,—‘Surely
I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly
respond,—‘Amen; even so come, Lord
Jesus!’”</p>
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