CHAPTER XXVI 367
The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly-
" It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living."
My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder-- my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.
" Who are you?" he asked of the intruder. " My name is Briggs, a solicitor of-- Street, London." " And you would thrust on me a wife?"
" I would remind you of your lady ' s existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not."
" Favour me with an account of her-- with her name, her parentage, her place of abode."
" Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:-
"' I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A. D.--( a date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of-, and of Ferndean Manor, in-shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at-- church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church-- a copy