The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till after dinner that I saw him again; he then seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy even less than before; it struck me as being, at the same time, unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering; this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly; there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape; no firmness in that aquiline nose, and small, cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.
As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the of girandoleseq on the mantel-piece beaming full over him--for he occupied an arm-chair, drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold--I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon; between a meek sheep and the rough-coated, keen-eyed dog, its guardian.
He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been; a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that "extremes meet."
Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they both called him "a beautiful man." Louisa said he was "a love of a creature," and she "adored him"; and Mary instanced his "pretty little mouth, and nice nose," as her ideal of the charming.
"And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!" cried Louisa; "so smooth--none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and such a placid eye and smile!"
And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to Hay Common.
I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country, which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons, of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller; Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.
I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burned out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, "old woman"--"quite troublesome."
"Tell her she shall be put in the stocks, if she does not take herself off," replied the magistrate.
"No, stop!" interrupted Colonel Dent. "Don't send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account--better consult the ladies." And speaking aloud, he continued, "Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gypsy camp; Sam, here, says that one of the old Mother Buncheser is in the servants' hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before 'the quality,' to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to see her?"
"Surely, colonel," cried Lady Ingram, "you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!"
"But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady," said the footman; "nor can any of the servants; Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here."
"What does she want?" asked Mrs. Eshton.
" 'To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she must and will do it."
"What is she like?" inquired the misses Eshton, in a breath.
"A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock."
"Why, she's a real sorceress!" cried Frederic Lynn. "Let us have her in, of course."
"To be sure," rejoined his brother; "it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun."
"My dear boys, what are you thinking about?" exclaimed Lady Lynn.
"I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding," chimed in the Dowager Ingram.
"Indeed, mamma, but you can--and will," pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool, where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. "I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told; therefore, Sam, order the beldamees forward."
"My darling Blanche! recollect--"
"I do--I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will--quick, Sam!"
"Yes--yes--yes!" cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. "Let her come--it will be excellent sport!"
The footman still lingered. "She looks such a rough one," said he.
"Go!" ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.
Excitement instantly seized the whole party; a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding, when Sam returned.
"She won't come now," said he. "She says it's not her mission to appear before the 'vulgar herd' (them's her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one."
"You see now, my queenly Blanche," began Lady Ingram, "she encroaches. Be advised, my angel-girl--and--"
"Show her into the library, of course," cut in the "angel-girl." "It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either; I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?"
"Yes, ma'am--but she looks such a tinkler."et
"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding."
Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation, rose to full flow once more.
"She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "She wishes to know who will be her first visitor."
"I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go," said Colonel Dent. "Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming."
Sam went and returned.
"She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor," he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, "any ladies either, except the young and single."
"By Jove, she has a taste!" exclaimed Henry Lynn.
Miss Ingram rose solemnly. "I go first," she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope,eu mounting a breach in the vanev of his men.
"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause--reflect!" was her mamma's cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it le casew to wring her hands, which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.
The minutes passed very slowly--fifteen were counted before the library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.
Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry; she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.
"Well, Blanche?" said Lord Ingram.
"What did she say, sis
ter?" asked Mary.
"What do you think? How do you feel? Is she a real fortune-teller?" demanded the misses Eshton.
"Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me. Really, your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited; you seem, by the importance you all--my good mamma included--ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman.exI have seen a gypsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry, and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now, I think, Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened."
Miss Ingram took a book, leaned back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half an hour--during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momentarily darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage; and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.
Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous sibyl,ey for the three to wait upon her in a body.
Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half scared out of their wits.
"I'm sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all. "She told us such things! She knows all about us!" and they sunk breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.
Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home; keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for.
Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.
In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a "hem" close at my elbow; I turned and saw Sam.
"If you please, miss, the gypsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you; there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?"
"Oh, I will go by all means," I answered; and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye, for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned, and I closed the door quietly behind me.
"If you like, miss," said Sam, "I'll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I'll come in."
"No, Sam, return to the kitchen--I am not in the least afraid." Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited.
Chapter XIX
The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the sibyl--if sibyl she were--was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet, or, rather, a broad-brimmed gypsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze; she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read. She did not desist immediately on my entrance; it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.
I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life; there was nothing, indeed, in the gypsy's appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black; elf-locksez bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or, rather, jaws; her eye confronted me at once with a bold and direct gaze.
"Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.
"I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself; but I ought to warn you, I have no faith."
"It's like your impudence to say so; I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold."
"Did you? You've a quick ear."
"I have--and a quick eye, and a quick brain."
"You need them all in your trade."
"I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why don't you tremble?"
"I'm not cold."
"Why don't you turn pale?"
"I am not sick."
"Why don't you consult my art?"
"I'm not silly."
The old crone "nichered"fa a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and, lighting it, began to smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said, very deliberately,
"You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly."
"Prove it," I rejoined.
"I will, in few words. You are cold because you are alone; no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you; you are sick, because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you; you are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it awaits you."
She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigor.
"You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house."
"I might say it to almost any one; but would it be true of almost any one?"
"In my circumstances."
"Yes; just so, in your circumstances; but find me another precisely placed as you are."
"It would be easy to find you thousands."
"You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated; very near happiness; yes; within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results."
"I don't understand enigmas, I never could guess a riddle in my life."
"If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm."
"And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?"
"To be sure."
I gave her a shilling; she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it.
"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines; besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written there."
"I believe you," said I.
"No," she continued, "it is in the face; on the forehead, about the eyes, in the eyes themselves, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head."
"Ah! now you
are coming to reality," I said as I obeyed her. "I shall begin to put some faith in you presently."
I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal; the glare, however, as she sat only threw her face into deeper shadow; mine, it illumined.
"I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night," she said, when she had examined me a while. "I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms and not the actual substance."
"I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes; but seldom sad."
"Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future."
"Not I. The utmost I hope is to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself."
"A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-seat (you see I know your habits)--"
"You have learned them from the servants."
"Ah! You think yourself sharp. Well--perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them--Mrs. Poole--"
I started to my feet when I heard the name.
"You have--have you?" thought I; "there is diableriefb in the business, after all, then?"
"Don't be alarmed," continued the strange being; "she's a safe hand, is Mrs. Poole; close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you study? One figure whose movements you follow with, at least, curiosity?"