"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear

the sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be

better managed by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting

you into a listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you

that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale

details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass through

new lips. For the rest, whether trite or novel, it is short.

"Twenty years ago, a poor curate--never mind his name at this

moment--fell in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love

with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends,

who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before

two years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly

side by side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed

part of the pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim,

soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in -

shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity

received in her lap--cold as that of the snow-drift I almost stuck

fast in to-night. Charity carried the friendless thing to the house

of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-law,

called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start--did

you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the

rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it

repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats.--To

proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it was happy

or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the

end of that time she transferred it to a place you know--being no

other than Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It

seems her career there was very honourable: from a pupil, she

became a teacher, like yourself--really it strikes me there are

parallel points in her history and yours--she left it to be a

governess: there, again, your fates were analogous; she undertook

the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester."

"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.

"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a

while: I have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr.

Rochester's character I know nothing, but the one fact that he

professed to offer honourable marriage to this young girl, and that

at the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a

lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter

of pure conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered

inquiry after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was

gone--no one could tell when, where, or how. She had left

Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had

been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of

information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should

be found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have

been put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one

Mr. Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just

imparted. Is it not an odd tale?"




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