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Jane Eyre: Mason

Later a Mr. Mason, from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, arrived at Thornfield while Mr. Rochester was entertaining a large party. That night Jane was awakened by a cry for help. When she reached the hall the guests were aroused. Mr. Rochester, candle in hand, was descending the stairs from the third floor. "A servant has had a nightmare," he said.

Thus he persuaded the guests back into their rooms. But all night Jane was obliged to attend Mr. Mason, who lay in a bed on the third floor, badly wounded in the arm and shoulder. From scattered hints Jane gathered that a woman had inflicted the wounds. A doctor was summoned, and before morning Mr. Rochester had spirited the wounded man away in a coach, with the doctor to watch over him.

Then Jane was suddenly summoned to Gateshead, to her aunt, Mrs. Reed, who lay dying. Mrs. Reed gave her a letter. It was from John Eyre, in Madeira, asking that his niece Jane Eyre come to him, that he might adopt her, as he was unmarried and childless. It was dated three years back. Mrs. Reed had never attempted to deliver it to Jane Eyre, because she disliked her too thoroughly to lend a hand in lifting her to prosperity.

When Jane returned to Thornfield, Mr. Rochester proposed to her; and because she loved him and believed in him, she accepted.

A month later, at the wedding, when the clergyman's lips were unclosed to ask, "Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?" in the gray old house of God, a distinct and near voice spoke in the silence of the empty church: "The marriage cannot go on. I declare the existence of an impediment." Asked by the clergyman for the facts, the speaker showed a document to prove that Mr. Rochester had married Bertha Mason, fifteen years before, in Spanish Town, Jamaica, and produced Mr. Mason to witness that the woman was alive and at Thornfield.

Edward Rochester confessed hardily and recklessly that he had married, as the lawyer asserted; that his wife was still living; and that he had kept her secretly at Thornfield for years. She was mad; and she came of a mad family, idiots and maniacs for three generations. He had been inveigled into the marriage by her family, with the connivance of his father and brother, who had desired him to marry a fortune. He invited the clergyman, the lawyer, and Mr. Mason to come up to Thornfield and see what sort of a being he had been cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not he had a right to break the compact.

At Thornfield he took them to the third story. In a room without a window there burnt a fire, guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain. A trusty maidservant bent over the fire, apparently cooking something. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backward and forward. What it was, at first sight, one could not tell; it groveled, seemingly, on all-fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal; but it was covered with clothing; and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face. "That is my wife," said Mr. Rochester.

Then all withdrew.

That night Jane stole away from Thornfield. The few shillings that she possessed she gave to the driver of the first coach she saw, to take her as far as he would for the money. Thirty-six hours later he let her off at a crossroads in the moorlands. Into the heather she walked. That night she ate bilberries, and slept under a crag.

Two days later, famished and drenched, she was taken into Marsh End, the house of the Reverend St. John Rivers, a young and ambitious clergyman in the neighboring village of Morton. His two sisters, Mary and Diana, were more than kind to Jane. They were soon to return to their work as governesses in a large south-of-England city.

St. John secured employment for Jane as mistress of the new girls' school in Morton. His plan was to become a missionary in India. He asked Jane to become his wife and go with him. But something kept her from consenting--he did not really love her; he felt the call to missionary work, but she did not. Then he discovered for her that her uncle had died, leaving her twenty thousand pounds. This was confirmed by Mr. Briggs, the solicitor in London. She discovered, too, that the mother of St. John and Mary and Diana had been her father's sister, so that they, too, should have been heirs to her uncle in Madeira. She insisted on a division of the legacy with them. One night St. John was pressing her for her final decision. The one candle was dying out; the room was full of moonlight. She heard a voice from somewhere cry-- "Jane! Jane! Jane!"

Next day she was on her way to Thornfield. In thirty-six hours she arrived at "The Rochester Arms," two miles away. With much misgiving she walked up to Thornfield--to find only a blackened ruin.

Back at the inn she learned that Thornfield Hall had burned down about harvest-time in the previous year. The fire had broken out in the dead of night. Mr. Rochester had tried to rescue his wife. She had climbed on to the roof, where she had stood, waving her arms, and shouting out till they could hear her a mile off. Mr. Rochester had ascended through the skylight. The crowd had heard him call "Bertha!" They had seen him approach her; and then she had yelled, and given a spring, and the next minute she had lain dead on the pavement.

Mr. Rochester had been taken from the ruins alive but sadly hurt; one eye had been knocked out, and one hand so crushed that the surgeon had had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed; he lost the sight of that also. He was now at Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he had, about thirty miles off; quite a desolate spot. There Jane found him, sad, helpless, and crippled. She married him. Eventually the sight returned to his eye, so that 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, with a full heart, he acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy. Diana and Mary Rivers were both married soon after, and alternately, once a year, came to visit Jane and Mr. Rochester. St. John Rivers left for India, to labor until called at length into the joy of his Lord. BULWER-LYTTON EDWARD BULWER, Lord Lytton, was brilliantly versatile. As statesman, he was far-sighted and astute; as dramatist, in "The Lady of Lyons," "Richelieu," and "Money," he struck and held the popular taste; as novelist, he produced some twenty-odd romances of widely varying type; as poet and political essayest, he was less notable.

During the early years of his marriage Bulwer was goaded to incessant production by the need of making money. Although his wealthy mother's purse was open to him, her disapproval of his marriage and his work was so irritatingly expressed that he finally had to refuse her assistance. The consequent driving necessity accounted somewhat for his facility and his quick sense of what the public was going to like next.

By means of sparkling epigram in his fashionable novel, "Pelham," he early achieved a reputation as a man of the world. He then occupied himself with the crime-novel and the romance of mystery. The satire of Thackeray and others in "Fraser's Magazine" drove him away from the field of burglary and homicide, and he delved into history for subjects. This produced "The Last Days of Pompeii," "Rienzi," and "The Last of the Barons." In "The Caxtons" he founded the "true cult of the colonies." This and two more of his best works responded to the popular demand for domestic novels. Tales of terror next attracted the public and Bulwer created a sensation by "The Strange Story," which came to him in a dream, and "The Haunted and the Haunters," one of the most perfect ghost stories in English literature.

Finally, he wrote novels and satires of society. His very versatility perhaps prevented his digging deeply into reality.