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.