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