Jane Eyre Chapter 23
A Splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so
radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour, even singly,
our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days come from the
South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on
the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield
were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their
dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted
well with the sunny hue of the clear meadows between.
On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in
Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop
asleep, and when I left her I sought the garden.
It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four: ---"Day its fervid fires
had wasted,” and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.
Where the sun had gone down in simple state--- pure of the pomp of the
clouds--- spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and
furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and
wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east has its own charm of
fine, deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary star: soon it
would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon.
I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent—
that of a cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open
a hand-breadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into
the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like;
it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers; a very high wall shut it out
from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it from
the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely
fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant
horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here
one could wonder unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence
reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade
forever: but in threading the flower and fruit-parterres at the upper part of
the inclosure, enticed there by the light the now-rising moon casts on this
more open quarter, my step is stayed- not by sound, not by sight, but once
more by a warning fragrance.
Sweet briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose, have long been
yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of
shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar. I look
round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a
nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible,
no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make
for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering.
I step aside into the ivy recess, he will not stay long: he will soon return
whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.
But no—evidence is as pleasant to his as to me, and this antique garden
is attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry tree branches to
look at the fruit, large as plums, --with which they are laden; now taking a
ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either
to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their pedals. A
great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester’s
foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it.
