CHAPTER XXXIII 478
now ) Mrs . Reed of Gateshead . You start -- did you hear a noise ? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom : it was a barn before I had it repaired and altered , and barns are generally haunted by rats . -- To proceed . Mrs . Reed kept the orphan ten years : whether it was happy or not with her , I cannot say , never having been told ; but at the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know -- being no other than Lowood School , where you so long resided yourself . It seems her career there was very honourable : from a pupil , she became a teacher , like yourself -- really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and yours -- she left it to be a governess : there , again , your fates were analogous ; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr . Rochester ."
" Mr . Rivers !" I interrupted .
" I can guess your feelings ," he said , " but restrain them for a while : I have nearly finished ; hear me to the end . Of Mr . Rochester ' s character I know nothing , but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable marriage to this young girl , and that at the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive , though a lunatic . What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture ; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary , it was discovered she was gone -- no one could tell when , where , or how . She had left Thornfield Hall in the night ; every research after her course had been vain : the country had been scoured far and wide ; no vestige of information could be gathered respecting her . Yet that she should be found is become a matter of serious urgency : advertisements have been put in all the papers ; I myself have received a letter from one Mr . Briggs , a solicitor , communicating the details I have just imparted . Is it not an odd tale ?"
" Just tell me this ," said I , " and since you know so much , you surely can tell it me -- what of Mr . Rochester ? How and where is he ? What is he doing ? Is he well ?"
" I am ignorant of all concerning Mr . Rochester : the letter never mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to . You