"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has
thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has
streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you
hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and
misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to
know."
"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your
perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you
must know some day,--as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?"
"Of course: that was all settled before."
"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?--that I was
christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"
"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your
initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I
never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely--"
I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to
express, the thought that rushed upon me--that embodied itself,--
that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability.
Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order:
the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was
drawn out straight,--every ring was perfect, the connection
complete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St.
John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have
the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation.
"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman,
who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre,
Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr.
Eyre's solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our
uncle's death, and to say that he had left his property to his
brother the clergyman's orphan daughter, overlooking us, in
consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father.
He wrote again a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was
lost, and asking if we knew anything of her. A name casually
written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find her out. You know
the rest." Again he was going, but I set my back against the door.
"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath
and reflect." I paused--he stood before me, hat in hand, looking
composed enough. I resumed "Your mother was my father's sister?"