Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 18.

Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how
different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and
solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed
now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there
was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now
traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers,
once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's maid or a
dandy valet.

The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance
hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and
still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring
weather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when
that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days,
no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became
more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoor
gaiety.

I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change
of entertainment was proposed: they spoke of "playing charades,"
but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants
were called in, the dining room tables wheeled away, the lights
otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the
arch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these
alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing
for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information
respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of
any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked,
and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats,
satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, etc., were brought down in
armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things
as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing room.

Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him,
and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "Miss
Ingram is mine, of course," said he: afterwards he named the two
Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be
near him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet,
which had got loose.

"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist,
which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return
quietly to my usual seat.

He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party,
which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs.
One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose
that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly
negatived the notion. "No," I heard her say: "she looks too stupid
for any game of the sort."

Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch,
the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise
chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on
a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton,
draped in Mr. Rochester's cloak, and holding a book in her hand.
Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adele (who had insisted
on being one of her guardian's party), bounded forward, scattering
round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her
arm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad
in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her
brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near
the table. They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed
also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony
followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the
pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, Colonel Dent and his
party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out
"Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.

A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second
rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last.
The drawing room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps
above the dining room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a
yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin
which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory where it
usually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish
and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on
account of its size and weight.

Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr.
Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. his
dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume
exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent
or a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss
Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson
scarf tied sash like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief
knotted about her temples; her beautifully moulded arms bare, one
of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully
on her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and
her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess
of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she
intended to represent.

She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher;
she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well brink
now seemed to accost her; to make some request: "She hasted, let
down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the
bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed
magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and
admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity
and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger
fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It
was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting.

The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they
could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated.
Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;"
whereupon the curtain again descended.

On its third rising only a portion of the drawing room was disclosed;
the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark
and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place,
stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible
by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles
being all extinguished.

Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting
on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester;
though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging
loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back
in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough,
bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain
clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters.

"Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.
A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume
their ordinary costume, they re entered the dining room. Mr. Rochester
led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.

"Do you know," said she, "that, of the three characters, I liked
you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what
a gallant gentleman highwayman you would have made!" "Is all the
soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it towards her.

"Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming
to your complexion than that ruffian's rouge." "You would like a
hero of the road then?" "An English hero of the road would be
the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be
surpassed by a Levantine pirate." "Well, whatever I am, remember
you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence
of all these witnesses." She giggled, and her colour rose.

"Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn." And as
the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats.
Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other
diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did
not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the
curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my
eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted
to the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his party
played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no
longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed
each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss
Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the
jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek;
I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances;
and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns
in memory at this moment.

I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester:
I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had
ceased to notice me because I might pass hours in his presence,
and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction because
I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned
to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever
her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw
it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I
could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this
very lady because I read daily in her a proud security in his
intentions respecting her because I witnessed hourly in him
a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be
sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating,
and in its very pride, irresistible.

There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances,
though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader,
to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume
to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous:
or very rarely; the nature of the pain I suffered could not be
explained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy:
she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming
paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not
genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but
her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed
spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by
its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used
to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had,
an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but
she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and
truth were not in her.

Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful
antipathy she had conceived against little Adele: pushing her away
with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her;
sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her
with coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched
these manifestations of character watched them closely, keenly,
shrewdly. Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself,
exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was
from this sagacity this guardedness of his this perfect, clear
consciousness of his fair one's defects this obvious absence of passion
in his sentiments towards her, that my ever torturing pain arose.

I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political
reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he
had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill
adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point this
was where the nerve was touched and teased this was where the
fever was sustained and fed: SHE COULD NOT CHARM HIM.

If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and
sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face,
turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss
Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour,
kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers
jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I
should have admired her acknowledged her excellence, and been
quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority,
the deeper would have been my admiration the more truly tranquil
my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram's
efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated
failure herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying
that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming
herself on success, when her pride and self complacency repelled
further and further what she wished to allure to witness THIS,
was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.

Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows
that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell
harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand,
have quivered keen in his proud heart have called love into his
stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still,
without weapons a silent conquest might have been won.

"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw
so near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like
him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not
coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly,
manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems
to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying
little and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his
face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while
she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself:
it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres;
and one had but to accept it to answer what he asked without
pretension, to address him when needful without grimace and
it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like
a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they
are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might
be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very
happiest woman the sun shines on."

I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project
of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I
first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a
man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice
of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, etc.,
of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming
either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and
principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood.
All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had
reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed
to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom
only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the
advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan
convinced me that there must be arguments against its general
adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all
the world would act as I wished to act.

But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to
my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once
kept a sharp look out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study
all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and
from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now
I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that
had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice
dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt
as comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something was it
a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?
that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye,
and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially
disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink,
as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic looking hills, and had
suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something,
I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not
with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only
to dare to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because
one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its
secrets and analyse their nature.

Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride
saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only
their movements of importance the rest of the party were occupied
with their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn
and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they
nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four
hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror,
according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of
magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good natured Mrs.
Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile
on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed
politics, or county affairs, or justice business. lord Ingram
flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one
of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the
gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent,
suspended their by play to observe and listen to the principal actors:
for, after all, Mr. Rochester and because closely connected
with him Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. If
he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed
to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re entrance was
sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.

The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt
one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was
not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk
the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched
on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the
gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with
the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard room.
The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.
Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity,
some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into
conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and
airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library,
had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared
to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence.
The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment
of the billiard players was heard from above.

It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of
the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt
by me in the drawing room window seat, suddenly exclaimed
"Voile, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!"

I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the
others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the
same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse hoofs
became audible on the wet gravel. A post chaise was approaching.

"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram.
"He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out?
and Pilot was with him: what has he done with the animals?"

As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments
so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the
breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at
first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another
casement. The post chaise stopped; the driver rang the door bell,
and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not
Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable looking man, a stranger.

"How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram: "you tiresome monkey!"
(apostrophising Adele), "who perched you up in the window to give
false intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I
were in fault.

Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new comer
entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady
present.

"It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when
my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very
long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate
acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns."

his manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being
somewhat unusual, not precisely foreign, but still not altogether
English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's, between thirty
and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was
a fine looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination,
you detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that
failed to please. his features were regular, but too relaxed: his
eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a
tame, vacant life at least so I thought.

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 girandoles on the mantelpiece 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 burnt 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 gipsy camp; Sam here says that
one of the old Mother Bunches 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
comer, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave
to come in here."

"What does she want?" asked Mrs. Eshton. 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
Frederick 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 Mrs. Lynn. "I cannot possibly countenance
any such inconsistent proceeding,"chimed in the Dowager Ingram.

"Indeed, mama, 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 beldame 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."
"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 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, mounting a breach
in the van of his men.

"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause reflect!" was her mama'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 cas" 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, sister?"
asked Mary. "What did 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 of you all my good mama 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.
I have seen a gipsy 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, leant 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 momently
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, 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 am sure she is something not right!" they cried,
one and all. "She told us such things! She knows all about us!" and
they sank 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 gipsy 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.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 19.>