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 had
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 cleared 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 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 had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its
own modest gem, a casino 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 handbreadth; 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 wander unseen. While such honey-dew
fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered,
I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but
in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the
upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the
light the now rising moon cast 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.
