A Death of a Selfless Martyr
He shivered, despite the fire in the hearth and the uncommon warmness of the Indian climate. He shuddered to contemplate the weather in England.
In his final weeks he had grown frail, fragile like eggshells, suffering from an unknown exotic disease. The same disease that had been ravaging the village, the very same that had already killed those he had prayed with only days before.
"Please, Mr. Rivers, eat this…" Eleanor offered the bowl of broth to him. She was a British officer's wife who had insisted upon attending him for the duration of his illness.
St. John waved her away, preferring to fast. He whetted his dry lips from a cup of water by his bedside. He shifted on the inadequate bed – a thin straw pallet on wooden slats – and tucked the covers more securely around him, leaning his shoulders on the pillows. He clasped a Bible in his lap, running his fingers across the smoothly worn leather cover.
He thought of Diana and Mary with neither grief nor regret. They had a handsome fortune between them and would live the rest of their days in peaceful, contented moderation. They would hardly recognize his absence once he passed on, he had been dead to them so long. Their correspondence had become so rare until it only consisted of holiday and birthday greetings and the shallowest of conversation, where it had once been so intimate, but that was his fault, not theirs. He had allowed – nay, wanted- their relationship to deplete into a polite acquaintance.
His own fortune had long ago vanished into charities for the poor and the founding of churches and hospitals. He did not lament at his poverty, for what did he want for? His faith was his nourishment and God was his remedy, his solace.
His mind often wandered to Jane, little Jane Eyre, with whom he had spent so many seasons on the English moors. He recalled her fondly, more fondly, perhaps, than any other he had known. He thought of her as being precisely what a woman ought to be – earnest, hardworking, Christian, and cultivated. He imagined her at Ferndean Manor, where she resided with her husband, Mr. Rochester, whom she praised so highly in her infrequent letters. He could imagine her as nothing but completely fulfilled in life, dandling her precious babies in her lap, walking with her blind Edward, and subsisting in the ignorant blissfulness of a healthy income and her own ample inheritance.
But his mind did not linger on her for long, ever shifting, like mists, as it was. Thoughts of Jane inevitably led him into thoughts of her.
Rosamund.
Her face was distinct in his memory, in all its innocent, youthful beauty. In his recollections he could picture her lucidly in a pink dress with puffed sleeves, a flower tucked in her fair hair, and her soft eyes flickering to him periodically. He also recalled the way he silently rebuffed her, refusing her attentions and denying his own desires.
St. John appreciated just how much he had loved her now that he was preparing to die a solitary death in his beloved India.
He had rejected her because he believed that was the best decision, the single logical way, but perhaps that is why he loved her so dearly. Because she had been good for his heart, against all his reasoning and ambition.
Rosamund, however much he loved her, would not have made a good missionary's wife. She would have withered away in India and St. John could not allow himself to remain in England for anyone and live out an inane life, abandoning his godly dreams in favor of a love that would diminish, tarnish as silver did.
He would not have had it any other way.
Everyone he had ever loved – his sisters, his one true friend, and his love – were living contentedly in England as he had always wished they would do. And St. John was satisfied with his life's work. He had come to India and helped bring faith and peace to its people. He had achieved his highest goal, his dearest wish.
And he passed away, alone, like a martyr, as he had always wanted.