“Oh yes. There is much you do not know.”
She started to rise, but I held her back by saying, “Do you not want to know who he will marry? It is not you. No, it is someone with far greater riches and truer beauty than you will ever know.”
At that she rose with a start. “You are an ugly old hag! How could you know what will proceed? The future is unknown to all.”
“It is not unknown to me,” I replied, and she fled from the room.
Next came the three young ladies: Mary Ingram and Louisa and Amy Eshton, giggling and shrieking from embarrassment and fear. They had refused to see me except in a group. “Welcome, and sit down,” I said, and waited for additional chairs to be pulled into place.
“You thought it would be fun to tease the old Gypsy, did you not?” I said when they were all seated.
Miss Mary Ingram spoke up. “What did you tell my sister?”
“Do you think I should tell her secrets? Would you like me to tell her yours?”
“Then tell my fortune.”
I leaned back into my chair, the shadows better covering my face. “First, I will tell something of your past. Yes, indeed, you and your sister and brother tortured your governesses until they left in despair: calling them names, throwing books into the air, scattering crumbs of biscuit around the nursery.”
The Eshton girls sat openmouthed, and Mary Ingram winced, as if I had physically attacked her.
“Tell me: are those the actions of proper children?” I asked. Then, recalling every family story I had heard around the dinner table, I told a tale or two on each girl: how Louisa had tried to climb a tree and was too afraid to climb back down, how Mary had been thrown from a horse at the age of twelve and had refused to ride ever since, how Amy had secretly learned to cook eggs and had surprised her mother by making breakfast for her mother’s birthday just last year. And I described their homes and their favorite lockets and the books they preferred to read. Through it all, they sat amazed that an old Gypsy could have seen so closely into their lives.
“What about the future?” Mary asked softly when I had finished.
“Ah,” I croaked, “the future is far more difficult, for it has not yet been written in stone, as the past has. You cannot erase the past, but you can change the future.”
“Will my sister marry Mr. Rochester?” Mary asked suddenly.
“Your sister does not love Mr. Rochester. She will not marry him.”
The three sat silent in astonishment.
“I told that lady many things,” I added, “and some of it she did not want to hear.” But I didn’t want to send them back with sour faces, so I gave them beautiful, obedient children; stately homes; lovely gowns and exquisite jewelry—all the things I imagined young girls dream of, and I even whispered into each delicate ear the name of a young man in their group whom I was sure held her interest. I sent them away giggling.
After they left, Sam returned to usher me out, as all the young ladies had seen me.
“All?” I said. “All?” Sam nodded, not understanding whom I was after. “There is one more, is there not?”
“Ah, well. But she is not a lady,” he insisted.
“No? What is she, then?”
“She is just the governess—a kind person indeed, but—”
“She is a lady, young man, and I will see her.”
“She is a private person. She may not come.”
“You may tell her I will not leave until she comes.”
He hurried away, and as he went, I adjusted my disguise, and gripped tightly the arms of my chair. Now came the true test.
Miss Ingram had come in imperious and defiant; the three girls had come shy and a little afraid; but my Jane came in curious and, as ever, composed. I pretended to read as she entered and ignored her at first, to see how she would act in private with a person by all accounts her social inferior. I was pleased, but not surprised, to see her wait as calmly and respectfully as she did for me in my normal guise. “Well, and you want your fortune told?” I asked her.
“I don’t care about it, Mother,” she said; “you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith.”
I suppressed a smile. This was my Jane, all right.
“Why don’t you tremble?” I asked.
“I’m not cold,” she responded.
“Why don’t you turn pale?”
“I am not sick.”
“Why don’t you consult my art?”
“I’m not silly.”
I chuckled, for I had guessed well her responses. I pulled out a pipe and lit it slowly, and gazed for a time into the fire, letting her observe me all the while. Then I said, “You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.”
“Prove it.”
“You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach; nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you.” There, I had laid it out.
She did not take the bait. “You might say all that to almost anyone,” she replied.
“But would it be true of almost anyone? Find me another precisely placed as you are.”
“It would be easy to find you thousands,” she responded.
“You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes; within reach of it.” What did I have to do to make her rise to my provocations? I promised her bliss in exchange for one movement. But she still would not act.
“I don’t understand enigmas,” she responded. “I never could guess a riddle in my life.” My sturdy Jane was not going to bend, was not going to give an inch, even to a poor old Gypsy.
“If you wish me to speak more plainly,” I challenged, “show me your palm.”
She handed me a shilling, which I stowed away as carefully as if it were worth a guinea, and I bent over the fine lines in her flesh, wishing that I were a real fortune-teller, who would know her heart line, and what it said of her. Cautiously I raised my eyes to her. “Destiny is not written there. It is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the eyes themselves.” Those eyes: how often had I wished to plumb their depths. “And in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head.” I came within half a yard of her, and stirred the fire, whose glare lit Jane’s face more fully, and more deeply cloaked my own.
I saw her watching me, and I waited for a while before saying, “I wonder with what feelings you came to me tonight. I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic lantern.”
She gave a little shrug, confessing nothing.
What was she made of, this Jane? “Then you have some secret hope,” I asked, “to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?”