"Jane - my dearest Jane. My very dear, estimable cousin! You must know, by now, that the good Lord has no use for you in the role of humble schoolteacher! It was not meant to be so: and mark my words, so it will not be!"
O, reader, how my heart did sink to hear these words, from the lips of my cousin St. John. These were not words, mark you, delivered as a matter of casual conversation, between cups of tea and items of parish gossip. Nay: instead, my cousin had knocked me up at less than six in the morning - an outlandish hour even to his sparse and stoical tastes and habits - specifically in order to make this announcement.
The heretical thought did cross my mind, that if for no other reason, then for this one, I had been quite justified before God in rejecting his proposals.
YOU ARE READING
The Bird and the Net
Roman d'amourSay that the 'honest work' that St. John found for Jane Eyre, was as governess to the children of Maria Crawford. By which means, she would escape the fatal lure of Rochester: and be drawn instead into the orbit of Henry Crawford... The title comes...
