Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.
‘Take it back to the coach-house, John,’ said Mr. Rochester coolly; ‘it will not be wanted to-day.’
At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us.
‘To the right-about—every soul!’ cried the master; ‘away with your congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!—they are fifteen years too late!’
He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester’s master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet.
‘You know this place, Mason,’ said our guide; ‘she bit and stabbed you here.’
He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, too, he opened. 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. Grace Pool bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growledlike 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.
‘Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!’ said Mr. Rochester. ‘How are you? and how is your charge to-day?’
‘We’re tolerable, sir, I thank you,’ replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: ‘rather snappish, but not ‘rageous.’
A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.
‘Ah! sir, she sees you!’ exclaimed Grace: ‘you’d better not stay.’
‘Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments.
‘Take care then, sir!—for God’s sake, take care!’
The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,—those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.
‘Keep out of the way,’ said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: ‘she has no knife now, I suppose, and I’m on my guard.’
‘One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft.’
‘We had better leave her,’ whispered Mason.
‘Go to the devil!’ was his brother-in-law’s recommendation.
‘Ware!’ cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid
and desolate.
