“Who is with him?”
“Old John and his wife: he would have
none else. He is quite broken down, they say.”
“Have you any sort of conveyance?”
“We have a chaise, ma’am, a very handsome
chaise.”
“Let it be got ready instantly; and if your
post-boy can drive me to Ferndean before dark this
day, I’ll pay both you and him twice the hire
you usually demand.”
The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable
antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions,
deep buried in a wood. I had heard of it before.
Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes went
there. His father had purchased the estate for
the sake of the game covers. He would have let
the house, but could find no tenant, in consequence
of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferndean
then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the
exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for
the accommodation of the squire when he went there
in the season to shoot.
To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked
by the characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and
continued small penetrating rain. The last mile
I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and
driver with the double remuneration I had promised.
Even when within a very short distance of the manor-house,
you could see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew
the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron
gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter,
and passing through them, I found myself at once in
the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was
a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle between
hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches.
I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling;
but it stretched on and on, it would far and farther:
no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.
I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my
way. The darkness of natural as well as of sylvan
dusk gathered over me. I looked round in search
of another road. There was none: all was
interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage
— no opening anywhere.
I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees
thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then
the house — scarce, by this dim light,
distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were
its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened
only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed
ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle.
There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad
gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in
the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented
two pointed gables in its front; the windows were
latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow
too, one step led up to it. The whole looked,
as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, “quite
a desolate spot.” It was as still as a
church on a week-day: the pattering rain on
the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its
vicinage.
