Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition

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PREFACE


A preface to the first edition of "Jane Eyre" being unnecessary,
I gave none:  this second edition demands a few words both of
acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.


My thanks are due in three quarters.


To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain
tale with few pretensions.


To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to
an obscure aspirant.


To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their
practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and
unrecommended Author.


The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and
I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite:
so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only
large_hearted and high_minded men know how to encourage a struggling
stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers,
I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.


Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved
me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but
not, therefore, to be overlooked.  I mean the timorous or carping
few who doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:"  in whose
eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest
against bigotry __ that parent of crime __ an insult to piety, that
regent of God on earth.  I would suggest to such doubters certain
obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths.


Conventionality is not morality.  Self_righteousness is not religion.
To attack the first is not to assail the last.  To pluck the mask
from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to
the Crown of Thorns.


These things and deeds are diametrically opposed:  they are
as distinct as is vice from virtue.  Men too often confound them:
they should not be confounded:  appearance should not be mistaken
for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and
magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world_redeeming
creed of Christ.  There is __ I repeat it __ a difference; and it
is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the
line of separation between them.


The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been
accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external
show pass for sterling worth __ to let white_washed walls vouch for
clean shrines.  It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose
__ to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it __ to penetrate
the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics:  but hate as it will, it
is indebted to him.


Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning
him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaannah
better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but
stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.


There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle
delicate ears:  who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones
of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings
of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power
as prophet_like and as vital __ a mien as dauntless and as daring.
Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places?  I cannot
tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek
fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin_brand
of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time __ they or
their seed might yet escape a fatal Rimoth_Gilead.


Why have I alluded to this man?  I have alluded to him, Reader,
because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique
than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him
as the first social regenerator of the day __ as the very master
of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped
system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings
has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly
characterise his talent.  They say he is like Fielding:  they talk
of his wit, humour, comic powers.  He resembles Fielding as an eagle
does a vulture:  Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray
never does.  His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both
bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent
sheet_lightning playing under the edge of the summer_cloud does to
the electric death_spark hid in its womb.  Finally, I have alluded
to Mr. Thackeray, because to him __ if he will accept the tribute
of a total stranger __ I have dedicated this second edition of
"JANE EYRE."


CURRER BELL.


December 21st, 1847.


NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION


I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of "Jane
Eyre" affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to
explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one
work alone.  If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction
has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not
merited; and consequently, denied where it is justly due.


This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already
have been made, and to prevent future errors.


CURRER BELL.


April 13th, 1848.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 01




There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.  We had
been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the
morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company,
dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so
sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out_door exercise
was now out of the question.


I was glad of it:  I never liked long walks, especially on chilly
afternoons:  dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight,
with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings
of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical
inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.


The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round
their mama in the drawing_room:  she lay reclined on a sofa by the
fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither
quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy.  Me, she had
dispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be
under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until
she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation,
that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable
and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner
__ something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were __ she
really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented,
happy, little children."


"What does Bessie say I have done?"  I asked.


"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is
something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that
manner.  Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly,
remain silent."


A breakfast_room adjoined the drawing_room, I slipped in there.  It
contained a bookcase:  I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking
care that it should be one stored with pictures.  I mounted into
the window_seat:  gathering up my feet, I sat cross_legged, like
a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I
was shrined in double retirement.


Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the
left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating
me from the drear November day.  At intervals, while turning over
the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon.
Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of
wet lawn and storm_beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away
wildly before a long and lamentable blast.


I returned to my book __ Bewick's History of British Birds:  the
letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and
yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I
could not pass quite as a blank.  They were those which treat of
the haunts of sea_fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories"
by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles
from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape _




"Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,
Boils round the naked, melancholy isles
Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge
Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."




Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of
Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland,
with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions
of dreary space, __ that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm
fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed
in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre
the multiplied rigours of extreme cold."  Of these death_white realms
I formed an idea of my own:  shadowy, like all the half_comprehended
notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely
impressive.  The words in these introductory pages connected
themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance
to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the
broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly
moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.


I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard,
with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low
horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly_risen crescent,
attesting the hour of eventide.


The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine
phantoms.


The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over
quickly:  it was an object of terror.


So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a
distant crowd surrounding a gallows.


Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped
understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting:
as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter
evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having
brought her ironing_table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us
to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and
crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages
of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads;
or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela,
and Henry, Earl of Moreland.


With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy:  happy at least in my
way.  I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon.
The breakfast_room door opened.


"Boh!  Madam Mope!"  cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused:
he found the room apparently empty.


"Where the dickens is she!"  he continued.  "Lizzy!  Georgy!
(calling to his sisters) Joan is not here:  tell mama she is run
out into the rain __ bad animal!"


"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently
he might not discover my hiding_place:  nor would John Reed have
found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception;
but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once _


"She is in the window_seat, to be sure, Jack."


And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being
dragged forth by the said Jack.


"What do you want?"  I asked, with awkward diffidence.


"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'"  was the answer.  "I want
you to come here;" and seating himself in an arm_chair, he intimated
by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.


John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older
than I, for I was but ten:  large and stout for his age, with a
dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage,
heavy limbs and large extremities.  He gorged himself habitually
at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared
eye and flabby cheeks.  He ought now to have been at school; but
his mama had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of his
delicate health."  Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would
do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from
home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and
inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness
was owing to over_application and, perhaps, to pining after home.


John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and
an antipathy to me.  He bullied and punished me; not two or three
times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually:
every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones
shrank when he came near.  There were moments when I was bewildered
by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against
either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to
offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs.
Reed was blind and deaf on the subject:  she never saw him strike
or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very
presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.


Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair:  he spent
some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he
could without damaging the roots:  I knew he would soon strike,
and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly
appearance of him who would presently deal it.  I wonder if he
read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking,
he struck suddenly and strongly.  I tottered, and on regaining my
equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.


"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said
he, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for
the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"


Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying
to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly
follow the insult.


"What were you doing behind the curtain?"  he asked.


"I was reading."


"Show the book."


I returned to the window and fetched it thence.


"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama
says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to
beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and
eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense.
Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves:  for they ARE mine;
all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years.  Go and
stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows."


I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when
I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I
instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm:  not soon enough,
however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my
head against the door and cutting it.  The cut bled, the pain was
sharp:  my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.


"Wicked and cruel boy!"  I said.  "You are like a murderer __ you
are like a slave_driver __ you are like the Roman emperors!"


I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion
of Nero, Caligula, &c.  Also I had drawn parallels in silence,
which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.


"What!  what!"  he cried.  "Did she say that to me?  Did you hear
her, Eliza and Georgiana?  Won't I tell mama?  but first __ "


He ran headlong at me:  I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder:
he had closed with a desperate thing.  I really saw in him a tyrant,
a murderer.  I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle
down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering:  these
sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him
in frantic sort.  I don't very well know what I did with my hands,
but he called me "Rat!  Rat!"  and bellowed out aloud.  Aid was
near him:  Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone
upstairs:  she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie
and her maid Abbot.  We were parted:  I heard the words _


"Dear!  dear!  What a fury to fly at Master John!"


"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"


Then Mrs. Reed subjoined _


"Take her away to the red_room, and lock her in there."  Four hands
were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 02




I resisted all the way:  a new thing for me, and a circumstance
which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot
were disposed to entertain of me.  The fact is, I was a trifle
beside myself; or rather OUT of myself, as the French would say:
I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me
liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I
felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.


"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot:  she's like a mad cat."


"For shame!  for shame!"  cried the lady's_maid.  "What shocking
conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's
son!  Your young master."


"Master!  How is he my master?  Am I a servant?"


"No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.
There, sit down, and think over your wickedness."


They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs.
Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool:  my impulse was to rise from
it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.


"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie.  "Miss
Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly."


Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature.
This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred,
took a little of the excitement out of me.


"Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."


In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.


"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that
I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and
Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully
on my face, as incredulous of my sanity.


"She never did so before," at last said Bessie, turning to the
Abigail.


"But it was always in her," was the reply.  "I've told Missis often
my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me.  She's an
underhand little thing:  I never saw a girl of her age with so much
cover."


Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said __ "You
ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs.
Reed:  she keeps you:  if she were to turn you off, you would have
to go to the poorhouse."


I had nothing to say to these words:  they were not new to me:  my
very first recollections of existence included hints of the same
kind.  This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing_song
in my ear:  very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.
Miss Abbot joined in _


"And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses
Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought
up with them.  They will have a great deal of money, and you will
have none:  it is your place to be humble, and to try to make
yourself agreeable to them."


"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh
voice, "you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps,
you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude,
Missis will send you away, I am sure."


"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her:  He might strike
her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go?
Come, Bessie, we will leave her:  I wouldn't have her heart for
anything.  Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself;
for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to come
down the chimney and fetch you away."


They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.


The red_room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might
say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at
Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the
accommodation it contained:  yet it was one of the largest and
stateliest chambers in the mansion.  A bed supported on massive
pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood
out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with
their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons
and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the
foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were
a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the
toilet_table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.  Out
of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the
piled_up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy
Marseilles counterpane.  Scarcely less prominent was an ample
cushioned easy_chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a
footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.


This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent,
because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it
was known to be so seldom entered.  The house_maid alone came here
on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's
quiet dust:  and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it
to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe,
where were stored divers parchments, her jewel_casket, and a miniature
of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret
of the red_room __ the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of
its grandeur.


Mr. Reed had been dead nine years:  it was in this chamber he breathed
his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the
undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration
had guarded it from frequent intrusion.


My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me
riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney_piece; the bed
rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe,
with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels;
to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking_glass between
them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room.  I was not
quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move,
I got up and went to see.  Alas!  yes:  no jail was ever more secure.
Returning, I had to cross before the looking_glass; my fascinated
glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed.  All looked
colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality:  and
the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and
arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where
all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit:  I thought
it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's
evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells
in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers.  I
returned to my stool.


Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her
hour for complete victory:  my blood was still warm; the mood of
the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I
had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed
to the dismal present.


All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference,
all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned
up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.  Why
was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for
ever condemned?  Why could I never please?  Why was it useless to
try to win any one's favour?  Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish,
was respected.  Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid
spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged.
Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight
to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.
John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the
necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea_chicks, set the dogs
at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke
the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory:  he called
his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin,
similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently
tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling."
I dared commit no fault:  I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was
termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to
noon, and from noon to night.


My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received:
no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I
had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was
loaded with general opprobrium.


"Unjust! __ unjust!"  said my reason, forced by the agonising
stimulus into precocious though transitory power:  and Resolve,
equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve
escape from insupportable oppression __ as running away, or, if that
could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting
myself die.


What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon!  How
all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection!
Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle
fought!  I could not answer the ceaseless inward question __ WHY I
thus suffered; now, at the distance of __ I will not say how many
years, I see it clearly.


I was a discord in Gateshead Hall:  I was like nobody there; I had
nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen
vassalage.  If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love
them.  They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that
could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing,
opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a
useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to
their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation
at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment.  I know that
had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome,
romping child __ though equally dependent and friendless __ Mrs. Reed
would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would
have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow_feeling;
the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat
of the nursery.


Daylight began to forsake the red_room; it was past four o'clock,
and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight.  I heard
the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and
the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees
cold as a stone, and then my courage sank.  My habitual mood of
humiliation, self_doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers
of my decaying ire.  All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be
so; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself
to death?  That certainly was a crime:  and was I fit to die?  Or
was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting
bourne?  In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried;
and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with
gathering dread.  I could not remember him; but I knew that he was
my own uncle __ my mother's brother __ that he had taken me when
a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he
had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain
me as one of her own children.  Mrs. Reed probably considered she
had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her
nature would permit her; but how could she really like an interloper
not of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband's
death, by any tie?  It must have been most irksome to find herself
bound by a hard_wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to
a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien
permanently intruded on her own family group.


A singular notion dawned upon me.  I doubted not __ never doubted
__ that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly;
and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls
__ occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly
gleaning mirror __ I began to recall what I had heard of dead men,
troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes,
revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed;
and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his
sister's child, might quit its abode __ whether in the church vault
or in the unknown world of the departed __ and rise before me in
this chamber.  I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest
any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to
comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over
me with strange pity.  This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt
would be terrible if realised:  with all my might I endeavoured
to stifle it __ I endeavoured to be firm.  Shaking my hair from
my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark
room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall.  Was it, I asked
myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind?
No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided
up to the ceiling and quivered over my head.  I can now conjecture
readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam
from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn:  but then,
prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by
agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some
coming vision from another world.  My heart beat thick, my head grew
hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings;
something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated:  endurance
broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate
effort.  Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned,
Bessie and Abbot entered.


"Miss Eyre, are you ill?"  said Bessie.


"What a dreadful noise!  it went quite through me!"  exclaimed
Abbot.


"Take me out!  Let me go into the nursery!"  was my cry.


"What for?  Are you hurt?  Have you seen something?"  again demanded
Bessie.


"Oh!  I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come."  I had now
got hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.


"She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust.
"And what a scream!  If she had been in great pain one would have
excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here:  I know her
naughty tricks."


"What is all this?"  demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs.
Reed came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling
stormily.  "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane
Eyre should be left in the red_room till I came to her myself."


"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.


"Let her go," was the only answer.  "Loose Bessie's hand, child:
you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured.  I
abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show
you that tricks will not answer:  you will now stay here an hour
longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and
stillness that I shall liberate you then."


"O aunt!  have pity!  Forgive me!  I cannot endure it __
let me be punished some other way!  I shall be killed if __ "


"Silence!  This violence is all most repulsive:"  and so, no doubt,
she felt it.  I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely
looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and
dangerous duplicity.


Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now
frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked
me in, without farther parley.  I heard her sweeping away; and soon
after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit:  unconsciousness
closed the scene.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 03




The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I
had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red
glare, crossed with thick black bars.  I heard voices, too, speaking
with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water:
agitation, uncertainty, and an all_predominating sense of terror
confused my faculties.  Ere long, I became aware that some one was
handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture,
and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before.
I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.


In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved:  I knew
quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the
nursery fire.  It was night:  a candle burnt on the table; Bessie
stood at the bed_foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman
sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.


I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection
and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room,
an individual not belonging to Gateshead., and not related to
Mrs. Reed.  Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less
obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been),
I scrutinised the face of the gentleman:  I knew him; it was Mr.
Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the
servants were ailing:  for herself and the children she employed
a physician.


"Well, who am I?" he asked.


I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand:  he
took it, smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by_and_by."
Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very
careful that I was not disturbed during the night.  Having given
some further directions, and intimates that he should call again
the next day, he departed; to my grief:  I felt so sheltered and
befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he
closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again
sank:  inexpressible sadness weighed it down.


"Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?"  asked Bessie, rather
softly.


Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might
be rough.  "I will try."


"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"


"No, thank you, Bessie."


"Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock;
but you may call me if you want anything in the night."


Wonderful civility this!  It emboldened me to ask a question.


"Bessie, what is the matter with me?  Am I ill?"


"You fell sick, I suppose, in the red_room with crying; you'll be
better soon, no doubt."


Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near.  I
heard her say _


"Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my
life be alone with that poor child to_night:  she might die; it's
such a strange thing she should have that fit:  I wonder if she
saw anything.  Missis was rather too hard."


Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering
together for half_an_hour before they fell asleep.  I caught scraps
of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly
to infer the main subject discussed.


"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished" __
"A great black dog behind him" __ "Three loud raps on the chamber
door" __ "A light in the churchyard just over his grave," &c.  &c.


At last both slept:  the fire and the candle went out.  For me, the
watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained
by dread:  such dread as children only can feel.


No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident
of the red_room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel
the reverberation to this day.  Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some
fearful pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for
you knew not what you did:  while rending my heart_strings, you
thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.


Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl
by the nursery hearth.  I felt physically weak and broken down:
but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind:  a
wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had
I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed.  Yet,
I thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were
there, they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama.
Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved
hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed
to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness.  This state
of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed
as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging;
but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no
calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.


Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with
her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird
of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had
been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration;
and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my
hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto
been deemed unworthy of such a privilege.  This precious vessel
was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the
circlet of delicate pastry upon it.  Vain favour!  coming, like
most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late!
I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints
of the flowers, seemed strangely faded:  I put both plate and tart
away.  Bessie asked if I would have a book:  the word BOOK acted as
a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels
from the library.  This book I had again and again perused with
delight.  I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in
it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales:  for
as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves
and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground_ivy mantling old
wall_nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that
they were all gone out of England to some savage country where
the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant;
whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of
the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking
a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and
trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of
the one realm; and the corn_fields forest_high, the mighty mastiffs,
the monster cats, the tower_like men and women, of the other.
Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand __ when
I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures
the charm I had, till now, never failed to find __ all was eerie
and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent
and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread
and dangerous regions.  I closed the book, which I dared no longer
peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.


Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having
washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full
of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new
bonnet for Georgiana's doll.  Meantime she sang:  her song was _


"In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago."


I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight;
for Bessie had a sweet voice, __ at least, I thought so.  But
now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an
indescribable sadness.  Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she
sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; "A long time ago" came
out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn.  She passed into
another ballad, this time a really doleful one.


"My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; Long is the way,
and the mountains are wild; Soon will the twilight close moonless
and dreary Over the path of the poor orphan child.


"Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors
spread and grey rocks are piled?  Men are hard_hearted, and kind
angels only Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.


"Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, Clouds there are
none, and clear stars beam mild, God, in His mercy, protection is
showing, Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.


"Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing, Or stray in
the marshes, by false lights beguiled, Still will my Father, with
promise and blessing, Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.


"There is a thought that for strength should avail me, Though both
of shelter and kindred despoiled; Heaven is a home, and a rest will
not fail me; God is a friend to the poor orphan child."


"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished.  She
might as well have said to the fire, "don't burn!"  but how could
she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey?  In the
course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.


"What, already up!"  said he, as he entered the nursery.  "Well,
nurse, how is she?"


Bessie answered that I was doing very well.


"Then she ought to look more cheerful.  Come here, Miss Jane:  your
name is Jane, is it not?"


"Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."


"Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what
about?  Have you any pain?"


"No, sir."


"Oh!  I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with
Missis in the carriage," interposed Bessie.


"Surely not!  why, she is too old for such pettishness."


I thought so too; and my self_esteem being wounded by the false
charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in
my life:  I hate going out in the carriage.  I cry because I am
miserable."


"Oh fie, Miss!"  said Bessie.


The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled.  I was standing
before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily:  his eyes were
small and grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them
shrewd now:  he had a hard_featured yet good_natured looking
face.  Having considered me at leisure, he said _


"What made you ill yesterday?"


"She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.


"Fall!  why, that is like a baby again!  Can't she manage to walk
at her age?  She must be eight or nine years old."


"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me
by another pang of mortified pride; "but that did not make me ill,"
I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.


As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang
for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was.  "That's for you,
nurse," said he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture
till you come back."


Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because
punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.


"The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?"  pursued Mr. Lloyd
when Bessie was gone.


"I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark."


I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.


"Ghost!  What, you are a baby after all!  You are afraid of ghosts?"


"Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am:  he died in that room, and was laid out
there.  Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night,
if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without
a candle, __ so cruel that I think I shall never forget it."


"Nonsense!  And is it that makes you so miserable?  Are you afraid
now in daylight?"


"No:  but night will come again before long:  and besides, __ I am
unhappy, __ very unhappy, for other things."


"What other things?  Can you tell me some of them?"


How much I wished to reply fully to this question!  How difficult
it was to frame any answer!  Children can feel, but they cannot
analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected
in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process
in words.  Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity
of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause,
contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true
response.


"For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters."


"You have a kind aunt and cousins."


Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced _


"But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red_
room."


Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff_box.


"Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?"  asked
he.  "Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live
at?"


"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be
here than a servant."


"Pooh!  you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid
place?"


"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but
I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman."


"Perhaps you may __ who knows?  Have you any relations besides Mrs.
Reed?"


"I think not, sir."


"None belonging to your father?"


"I don't know.  I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly
I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew
nothing about them."


"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"


I reflected.  Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more
so to children:  they have not much idea of industrious, working,
respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with
ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and
debasing vices:  poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.


"No; I should not like to belong to poor people," was my reply.


"Not even if they were kind to you?"


I shook my head:  I could not see how poor people had the means of
being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their
manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I
saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at
the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead:  no, I was not heroic
enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.


"But are your relatives so very poor?  Are they working people?"


"I cannot tell; Aunt.  Reed says if I have any, they must be a
beggarly set:  I should not like to go a begging."


"Would you like to go to school?"


Again I reflected:  I scarcely knew what school was:  Bessie
sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks,
wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and
precise:  John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but
John Reed's tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts
of school_discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family
where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat
appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by
these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive.  She
boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them
executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of
purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till
my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened.  Besides, school
would be a complete change:  it implied a long journey, an entire
separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.


"I should indeed like to go to school," was the audible conclusion
of my musings.


"Well, well!  who knows what may happen?"  said Mr. Lloyd, as he got
up.  "The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added,
speaking to himself; "nerves not in a good state."


Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard
rolling up the gravel_walk.


"Is that your mistress, nurse?"  asked Mr. Lloyd.  "I should like
to speak to her before I go."


Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast_room, and led the way
out.  In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed,
I presume, from after_occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to
recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no
doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the
subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night,
after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she
dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill_ conditioned
child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and
scheming plots underhand."  Abbot, I think, gave me credit for
being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.


On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss
Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor
clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her
friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather
Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without
a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a
year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the
poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated,
and where that disease was then prevalent:  that my mother took
the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.


Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss
Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot."


"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might
compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such
a little toad as that."


"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie:  "at any rate, a beauty
like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition."


"Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!"  cried the fervent Abbot.  "Little
darling! __ with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet
colour as she has; just as if she were painted! __ Bessie, I could
fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper."


"So could I __ with a roast onion.  Come, we'll go down."  They
went.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 04




From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported
conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to
suffice as a motive for wishing to get well:  a change seemed near,
__ I desired and waited it in silence.  It tarried, however:  days
and weeks passed:  I had regained my normal state of health, but
no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded.  Mrs.
Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed
me:  since my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation
than ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small
closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals
alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were
constantly in the drawing_room.  Not a hint, however, did she drop
about sending me to school:  still I felt an instinctive certainty
that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her;
for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed
an insuperable and rooted aversion.


Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke
to me as little as possible:  John thrust his tongue in his cheek
whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I
instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep
ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he
thought it better to desist, and ran from me tittering execrations,
and vowing I had burst his nose.  I had indeed levelled at that
prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict;
and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him, I had the
greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose; but he was
already with his mama.  I heard him in a blubbering tone commence
the tale of how "that nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him
like a mad cat:  he was stopped rather harshly _


"Don't talk to me about her, John:  I told you not to go near her;
she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or
your sisters should associate with her."


Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly,
and without at all deliberating on my words _


"They are not fit to associate with me."


Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange
and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me
like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge
of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place,
or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.


"What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?"  was my
scarcely voluntary demand.  I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed
as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their
utterance:  something spoke out of me over which I had no control.


"What?"  said Mrs. Reed under her breath:  her usually cold composed
grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand
from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether
I were child or fiend.  I was now in for it.


"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and
so can papa and mama:  they know how you shut me up all day long,
and how you wish me dead."


Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits:  she shook me most soundly,
she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word.  Bessie
supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she
proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child
ever reared under a roof.  I half believed her; for I felt indeed
only bad feelings surging in my breast.


November, December, and half of January passed away.  Christmas
and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual
festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening
parties given.  From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded:  my
share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling
of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing_room,
dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair
elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound
of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro
of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as
refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the
drawing_room door opened and closed.  When tired of this occupation,
I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery:
there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable.  To speak truth,
I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was
very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable,
I should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with
her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed,
in a room full of ladies and gentlemen.  But Bessie, as soon as
she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the
lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally
bearing the candle along with her.  I then sat with my doll on my
knee till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make
sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and
when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging
at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold
and darkness in my crib.  To this crib I always took my doll; human
beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects
of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing
a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow.  It puzzles
me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this
little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation.  I
could not sleep unless it was folded in my night_gown; and when it
lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it
to be happy likewise.


Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and
listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs:  sometimes
she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her
scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper __ a
bun or a cheese_cake __ then she would sit on the bed while I ate
it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me,
and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good night, Miss Jane."  When
thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being
in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always
be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or
task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do.  Bessie Lee
must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she
was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative;
so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery
tales.  She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and
person are correct.  I remember her as a slim young woman, with black
hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion;
but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas
of principle or justice:  still, such as she was, I preferred her
to any one else at Gateshead Hall.


It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning:
Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been
summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm
garden_coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she
was fond:  and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper
and hoarding up the money she thus obtained.  She had a turn for
traffic, and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the
vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains
with the gardener about flower_roots, seeds, and slips of plants;
that functionary having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young
lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell:  and
Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made
a handsome profit thereby.  As to her money, she first secreted
it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curl_paper; but some
of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid, Eliza,
fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, consented to intrust
it to her mother, at a usurious rate of interest __ fifty or sixty
per cent.; which interest she exacted every quarter, keeping her
accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy.


Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and
interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers,
of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic.  I was
making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it
arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me
as a sort of under_nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs,
&c.).  Having spread the quilt and folded my night_dress, I went
to the window_seat to put in order some picture_books and doll's
house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana
to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the
fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings;
and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the
frost_flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing
a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds,
where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard
frost.


From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage_
road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver_white foliage
veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown
open and a carriage roll through.  I watched it ascending the drive
with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever
brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of
the house, the door_bell rang loudly, the new_comer was admitted.
All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier
attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and
chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry_tree nailed against
the wall near the casement.  The remains of my breakfast of bread
and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll,
I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window_
sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.


"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there?  Have
you washed your hands and face this morning?"  I gave another tug
before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread:
the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill,
some on the cherry_tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied _


"No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting."


"Troublesome, careless child!  and what are you doing now?  You
look quite red, as if you had been about some mischief:  what were
you opening the window for?"


I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great
a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand,
inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands
with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a
bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to
the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in
the breakfast_room.


I would have asked who wanted me:  I would have demanded if
Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed
the nursery_door upon me.  I slowly descended.  For nearly three
months, I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted
so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing_rooms
were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.


I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast_room
door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling.  What a miserable
little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of
me in those days!  I feared to return to the nursery, and feared
to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated
hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast_room bell decided
me; I MUST enter.


"Who could want me?"  I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned
the stiff door_handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my
efforts.  "What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?
__ a man or a woman?"  The handle turned, the door unclosed,
and passing through and curtseying low, I looked up at __ a black
pillar! __ such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the
straight, narrow, sable_clad shape standing erect on the rug:  the
grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft
by way of capital.


Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a
signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the
stony stranger with the words:  "This is the little girl respecting
whom I applied to you."


HE, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood,
and having examined me with the two inquisitive_looking grey eyes
which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in
a bass voice, "Her size is small:  what is her age?"


"Ten years."


"So much?"  was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny
for some minutes.  Presently he addressed me __ "Your name, little
girl?"


"Jane Eyre, sir."


In uttering these words I looked up:  he seemed to me a tall gentleman;
but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and
all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.


"Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?"


Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative:  my little world
held a contrary opinion:  I was silent.  Mrs. Reed answered for me
by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less
said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst."


"Sorry indeed to hear it!  she and I must have some talk;" and
bending from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm_
chair opposite Mrs. Reed's.  "Come here," he said.


I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before
him.  What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level
with mine!  what a great nose!  and what a mouth!  and what large
prominent teeth!


"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a
naughty little girl.  Do you know where the wicked go after death?"


"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.


"And what is hell?  Can you tell me that?"


"A pit full of fire."


"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there
for ever?"


"No, sir."


"What must you do to avoid it?"


I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable:
"I must keep in good health, and not die."


"How can you keep in good health?  Children younger than you die
daily.  I buried a little child of five years old only a day or
two since, __ a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven.
It is to be feared the same could not be said of you were you to
be called hence."


Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes
down on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing
myself far enough away.


"I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever
having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress."


"Benefactress!  benefactress!"  said I inwardly:  "they all call
Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable
thing."


"Do you say your prayers night and morning?"  continued my
interrogator.


"Yes, sir."


"Do you read your Bible?"


"Sometimes."


"With pleasure?  Are you fond of it?"


"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel,
and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles,
and Job and Jonah."


"And the Psalms?  I hope you like them?"


"No, sir."


"No?  oh, shocking!  I have a little boy, younger than you, who
knows six Psalms by heart:  and when you ask him which he would
rather have, a gingerbread_nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to
learn, he says:  'Oh!  the verse of a Psalm!  angels sing Psalms;'
says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here below;' he then gets
two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."


"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.


"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to
change it:  to give you a new and clean one:  to take away your
heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."


I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which
that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs.
Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to
carry on the conversation herself.


"Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I
wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite
the character and disposition I could wish:  should you admit her
into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and
teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above
all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit.  I
mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to
impose on Mr. Brocklehurst."


Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was
her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence;
however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please
her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences
as the above.  Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut
me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating
hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to
enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that
she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw
myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful,
noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?


"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and
hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish.


"Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst;
"it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in
the lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be
watched, Mrs. Reed.  I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."


"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,"
continued my benefactress; "to be made useful, to be kept humble:
as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them
always at Lowood."


"Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr.
Brocklehurst.  "Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly
appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that
especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them.
I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment
of pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my
success.  My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit
the school, and on her return she exclaimed:  'Oh, dear papa,
how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair
combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little
holland pockets outside their frocks __ they are almost like poor
people's children!  and,' said she, 'they looked at my dress and
mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before.'"


"This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs.
Reed; "had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found
a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre.  Consistency,
my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things."


"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has
been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment
of Lowood:  plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations,
hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house
and its inhabitants."


"Quite right, sir.  I may then depend upon this child being received
as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her
position and prospects?"


"Madam, you may:  she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen
plants, and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable
privilege of her election."


"I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for,
I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility
that was becoming too irksome."


"No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning.  I
shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two:
my good friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him
sooner.  I shall send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a
new girl, so that there will he no difficulty about receiving her.
Good_bye."


"Good_bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst,
and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst."


"I will, madam.  Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's
Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An
account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G _, a naughty child
addicted to falsehood and deceit.'"


With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet
sewn in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed.


Mrs. Reed and I were left alone:  some minutes passed in silence;
she was sewing, I was watching her.  Mrs. Reed might be at that
time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame,
square_shouldered and strong_limbed, not tall, and, though stout,
not obese:  she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being
much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and
prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light
eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and
opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell
__ illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager;
her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control;
her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to
scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to
set off handsome attire.


Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm_chair, I examined
her figure; I perused her features.  In my hand I held the
tract containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative
my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning.  What
had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr.
Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent,
raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as
I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now
within me.


Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her
fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.


"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate.  My
look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she
spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation.  I got up, I went
to the door; I came back again; I walked to the window, across the
room, then close up to her.


SPEAK I must:  I had been trodden on severely, and MUST turn:  but
how?  What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist?
I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence _


"I am not deceitful:  if I were, I should say I loved you; but I
declare I do not love you:  I dislike you the worst of anybody in
the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may
give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and
not I."


Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive:  her eye of ice
continued to dwell freezingly on mine.


"What more have you to say?"  she asked, rather in the tone in
which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as
is ordinarily used to a child.


That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had.
Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement,
I continued _


"I am glad you are no relation of mine:  I will never call you
aunt again as long as I live.  I will never come to see you when
I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you
treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and
that you treated me with miserable cruelty."


"How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"


"How dare I, Mrs. Reed?  How dare I? Because it is the TRUTH. You
think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love
or kindness; but I cannot live so:  and you have no pity.  I shall
remember how you thrust me back __ roughly and violently thrust
me back __ into the red_room, and locked me up there, to my dying
day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating
with distress, 'Have mercy!  Have mercy, Aunt Reed!'  And that
punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me
__ knocked me down for nothing.  I will tell anybody who asks me
questions, this exact tale.  People think you a good woman, but
you are bad, hard_ hearted.  YOU are deceitful!"


Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult,
with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt.  It
seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled
out into unhoped_for liberty.  Not without cause was this sentiment:
Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee;
she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even
twisting her face as if she would cry.


"Jane, you are under a mistake:  what is the matter with you?  Why
do you tremble so violently?  Would you like to drink some water?"


"No, Mrs. Reed."


"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane?  I assure you, I desire
to be your friend."


"Not you.  You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a
deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what
you are, and what you have done."


"Jane, you don't understand these things:  children must be corrected
for their faults."


"Deceit is not my fault!"  I cried out in a savage, high voice.


"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow:  and now return
to the nursery __ there's a dear __ and lie down a little."


"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down:  send me to school soon,
Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."


"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed sotto
voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.


I was left there alone __ winner of the field.  It was the hardest
battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained:  I stood
awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed
my conqueror's solitude.  First, I smiled to myself and felt
elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the
accelerated throb of my pulses.  A child cannot quarrel with its
elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled
play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang
of remorse and the chill of reaction.  A ridge of lighted heath,
alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my
mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed:  the same ridge, black
and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as
meetly my subsequent condition, when half_an_hour's silence and
reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness
of my hated and hating position.


Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic
wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy:  its after_flavour,
metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but
I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was
the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re_exciting
every turbulent impulse of my nature.


I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce
speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than
that of sombre indignation.  I took a book __ some Arabian tales;
I sat down and endeavoured to read.  I could make no sense of
the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page
I had usually found fascinating.  I opened the glass_door in the
breakfast_room:  the shrubbery was quite still:  the black frost
reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds.  I covered
my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk
in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I
found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir_cones, the
congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in
heaps, and now stiffened together.  I leaned against a gate, and
looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the
short grass was nipped and blanched.  It was a very grey day; a
most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt
it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea
without melting.  I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to
myself over and over again, "What shall I do? __ what shall I do?"


All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane!  where are you?
Come to lunch!"


It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light
step came tripping down the path.


"You naughty little thing!"  she said.  "Why don't you come when
you are called?"


Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been
brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat
cross.  The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs.
Reed, I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory
anger; and I WAS disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of
heart.  I just put my two arms round her and said, "Come, Bessie!
don't scold."


The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated
to indulge in:  somehow it pleased her.


"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said, as she looked down
at me; "a little roving, solitary thing:  and you are going to
school, I suppose?"


I nodded.


"And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?"


"What does Bessie care for me?  She is always scolding me."


"Because you're such a queer, frightened, shy little thing.  You
should be bolder."


"What!  to get more knocks?"


"Nonsense!  But you are rather put upon, that's certain.  My mother
said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like
a little one of her own to be in your place. __ Now, come in, and
I've some good news for you."


"I don't think you have, Bessie."


"Child!  what do you mean?  What sorrowful eyes you fix on me!
Well, but Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going
out to tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me.  I'll
ask cook to bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to
look over your drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk.  Missis
intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose
what toys you like to take with you."


"Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go."


"Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be
afraid of me.  Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply;
it's so provoking."


"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because
I have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people
to dread."


"If you dread them they'll dislike you."


"As you do, Bessie?"


"I don't dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of
all the others."


"You don't show it."


"You little sharp thing!  you've got quite a new way of talking.
What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"


"Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides" __ I was going
to say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed,
but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on
that head.


"And so you're glad to leave me?"


"Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I'm rather sorry."


"Just now!  and rather!  How coolly my little lady says it!  I
dare say now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn't give it
me:  you'd say you'd RATHER not."


"I'll kiss you and welcome:  bend your head down."  Bessie stooped;
we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite
comforted.  That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the
evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang
me some of her sweetest songs.  Even for me life had its gleams of
sunshine.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 05




Five o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of
January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me
already up and nearly dressed.  I had risen half_an_hour before
her entrance, and had washed my face, and put on my clothes by the
light of a half_moon just setting, whose rays streamed through the
narrow window near my crib.  I was to leave Gateshead that day by
a coach which passed the lodge gates at six a.m.  Bessie was the
only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where
she now proceeded to make my breakfast.  Few children can eat when
excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie, having
pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and
bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper
and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse
and bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the
nursery.  As we passed Mrs. Reed's bedroom, she said, "Will you go
in and bid Missis good_bye?"


"No, Bessie:  she came to my crib last night when you were gone
down to supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or
my cousins either; and she told me to remember that she had always
been my best friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her
accordingly."


"What did you say, Miss?"


"Nothing:  I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from
her to the wall."


"That was wrong, Miss Jane."


"It was quite right, Bessie.  Your Missis has not been my friend:
she has been my foe."


"O Miss Jane!  don't say so!"


"Good_bye to Gateshead!"  cried I, as we passed through the hall
and went out at the front door.


The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern,
whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent
thaw.  Raw and chill was the winter morning:  my teeth chattered
as I hastened down the drive.  There was a light in the porter's
lodge:  when we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling
her fire:  my trunk, which had been carried down the evening
before, stood corded at the door.  It wanted but a few minutes of
six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of
wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door and watched
its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.


"Is she going by herself?"  asked the porter's wife.


"Yes."


"And how far is it?"


"Fifty miles."


"What a long way!  I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her
so far alone."


The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses
and its top laden with passengers:  the guard and coachman loudly
urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's
neck, to which I clung with kisses.


"Be sure and take good care of her," cried she to the guard, as he
lifted me into the inside.


"Ay, ay!"  was the answer:  the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed
"All right," and on we drove.  Thus was I severed from Bessie and
Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed,
remote and mysterious regions.


I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day
seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to
travel over hundreds of miles of road.  We passed through several
towns, and in one, a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses
were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine.  I was carried
into an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as
I had no appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace
at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red
gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments.
Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and
mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for
I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured
in Bessie's fireside chronicles.  At last the guard returned; once
more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own
seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the "stony
street" of L_.


The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty:  as it waned into
dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from
Gateshead:  we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed;
great grey hills heaved up round the horizon:  as twilight deepened,
we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had
overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.


Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered
when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach_door was
open, and a person like a servant was standing at it:  I saw her
face and dress by the light of the lamps.


"Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?"  she asked.  I
answered "Yes," and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down,
and the coach instantly drove away.


I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and
motion of the coach:  Gathering my faculties, I looked about me.
Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly
discerned a wall before me and a door open in it; through this door
I passed with my new guide:  she shut and locked it behind her.
There was now visible a house or houses __ for the building spread
far __ with many windows, and lights burning in some; we went up
a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door;
then the servant led me through a passage into a room with a fire,
where she left me alone.


I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked
round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth
showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining
mahogany furniture:  it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid
as the drawing_room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough.  I was
puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the
door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another
followed close behind.


The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale
and large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl,
her countenance was grave, her bearing erect.


"The child is very young to be sent alone," said she, putting
her candle down on the table.  She considered me attentively
for a minute or two, then further added _


"She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired:  are you
tired?"  she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.


"A little, ma'am."


"And hungry too, no doubt:  let her have some supper before she
goes to bed, Miss Miller.  Is this the first time you have left
your parents to come to school, my little girl?"


I explained to her that I had no parents.  She inquired how long
they had been dead:  then how old I was, what was my name, whether
I could read, write, and sew a little:  then she touched my cheek
gently with her forefinger, and saying, "She hoped I should be a
good child," dismissed me along with Miss Miller.


The lady I had left might be about twenty_nine; the one who went
with me appeared some years younger:  the first impressed me by
her voice, look, and air.  Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in
complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and
action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand:
she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an
under_teacher.  Led by her, I passed from compartment to compartment,
from passage to passage, of a large and irregular building; till,
emerging from the total and somewhat dreary silence pervading that
portion of the house we had traversed, we came upon the hum of many
voices, and presently entered a wide, long room, with great deal
tables, two at each end, on each of which burnt a pair of candles,
and seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of every
age, from nine or ten to twenty.  Seen by the dim light of the
dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality
exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks
of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores.  It was the hour of
study; they were engaged in conning over their to_ morrow's task,
and the hum I had heard was the combined result of their whispered
repetitions.


Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door,
then walking up to the top of the long room she cried out _


"Monitors, collect the lesson_books and put them away!  Four tall
girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered the
books and removed them.  Miss Miller again gave the word of command _


"Monitors, fetch the supper_trays!"


The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray,
with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and
a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray.  The portions
were handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water,
the mug being common to all.  When it came to my turn, I drank, for
I was thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue
rendering me incapable of eating:  I now saw, however, that it was
a thin oaten cake shaved into fragments.


The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes
filed off, two and two, upstairs.  Overpowered by this time with
weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was,
except that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long.  To_night
I was to be Miss Miller's bed_fellow; she helped me to undress:
when laid down I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which
was quickly filled with two occupants; in ten minutes the single
light was extinguished, and amidst silence and complete darkness
I fell asleep.


The night passed rapidly.  I was too tired even to dream; I only
once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain
fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken
her place by my side.  When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell
was ringing; the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun
to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room.  I too rose
reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could
for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty, which
did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to six girls, on
the stands down the middle of the room.  Again the bell rang:  all
formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs
and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom:  here prayers
were read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out _


"Form classes!"


A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller
repeatedly exclaimed, "Silence!"  and "Order!"  When it subsided,
I saw them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs,
placed at the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great
book, like a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat.  A
pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum
of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this
indefinite sound.


A distant bell tinkled:  immediately three ladies entered the room,
each walked to a table and took her seat.  Miss Miller assumed the
fourth vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around
which the smallest of the children were assembled:  to this inferior
class I was called, and placed at the bottom of it.


Business now began, the day's Collect was repeated, then certain
texts of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted
reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour.  By
the time that exercise was terminated, day had fully dawned.  The
indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time:  the classes
were marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast:  how
glad I was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat!  I
was now nearly sick from inanition, having taken so little the day
before.


The refectory was a great, low_ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables
smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent
forth an odour far from inviting.  I saw a universal manifestation
of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils
of those destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession,
the tall girls of the first class, rose the whispered words _


"Disgusting!  The porridge is burnt again!"


"Silence!"  ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of
the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed,
but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top
of one table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other.  I
looked in vain for her I had first seen the night before; she was
not visible:  Miss Miller occupied the foot of the table where I sat,
and a strange, foreign_looking, elderly lady, the French teacher,
as I afterwards found, took the corresponding seat at the other
board.  A long grace was said and a hymn sung; then a servant
brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began.


Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my
portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger
blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt
porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon
sickens over it.  The spoons were moved slowly:  I saw each girl
taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort
was soon relinquished.  Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted.
Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn
chanted, the refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom.  I was one
of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw one teacher
take a basin of the porridge and taste it; she looked at the others;
all their countenances expressed displeasure, and one of
them, the stout one, whispered _


"Abominable stuff!  How shameful!"


A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which
the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it
seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used
their privilege.  The whole conversation ran on the breakfast,
which one and all abused roundly.  Poor things!  it was the sole
consolation they had.  Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the
room:  a group of great girls standing about her spoke with serious
and sullen gestures.  I heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced
by some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly;
but she made no great effort to cheek the general wrath; doubtless
she shared in it.


A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left
her circle, and standing in the middle of the room, cried _


"Silence!  To your seats!"


Discipline prevailed:  in five minutes the confused throng was
resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel
clamour of tongues.  The upper teachers now punctually resumed their
posts:  but still, all seemed to wait.  Ranged on benches down the
sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a
quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from
their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and
surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets
of holland (shaped something like a Highlander's purse) tied in front
of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a work_bag:
all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country_made shoes, fastened
with brass buckles.  Above twenty of those clad in this costume
were full_grown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill,
and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest.


I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the
teachers __ none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one
was a little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner
harsh and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing!  looked purple,
weather_ beaten, and over_worked __ when, as my eye wandered from
face to face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by
a common spring.


What was the matter?  I had heard no order given:  I was puzzled.
Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated:  but as
all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general
direction, and encountered the personage who had received me last
night.  She stood at the bottom of the long room, on the hearth;
for there was a fire at each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls
silently and gravely.  Miss Miller approaching, seemed to ask her
a question, and having received her answer, went back to
her place, and said aloud _


"Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!"


While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved
slowly up the room.  I suppose I have a considerable organ of
veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which
my eyes traced her steps.  Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked
tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their
iris, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the
whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of
a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the
fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets
were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple
cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet;
a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at
her girdle.  Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined
features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and
carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can give
it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple __ Maria Temple,
as I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer_book intrusted to
me to carry to church.


The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken
her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables,
summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson
on geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers:
repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing
and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss
Temple to some of the elder girls.  The duration of each lesson
was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve.  The
superintendent rose _


"I have a word to address to the pupils," said she.


The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking
forth, but it sank at her voice.  She went on _


"You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you
must be hungry: __ I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese
shall be served to all."


The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise.


"It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory
tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room.


The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to
the high delight and refreshment of the whole school.  The order
was now given "To the garden!"  Each put on a coarse straw bonnet,
with strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze.  I was
similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into
the open air.


The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as
to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down
one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into
scores of little beds:  these beds were assigned as gardens for
the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner.  When full of
flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter
end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay.  I shuddered
as I stood and looked round me:  it was an inclement day for outdoor
exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow
fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the floods of
yesterday.  The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in
active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for
shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense
mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the
sound of a hollow cough.


As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice
of me; I stood lonely enough:  but to that feeling of isolation
I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much.  I leant against a
pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and,
trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied
hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment
of watching and thinking.  My reflections were too undefined
and fragmentary to merit record:  I hardly yet knew where I was;
Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable
distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I
could form no conjecture.  I looked round the convent_like garden,
and then up at the house __ a large building, half of which seemed
grey and old, the other half quite new.  The new part, containing
the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed
windows, which gave it a church_like aspect; a stone tablet over
the door bore this inscription:_


"Lowood Institution. __ This portion was rebuilt A.D. __ , by Naomi
Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county."


"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good
works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." __ St. Matt.
v.  16.


I read these words over and over again:  I felt that an explanation
belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import.
I was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and
endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and
the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me
made me turn my head.  I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near;
she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent:
from where I stood I could see the title __ it was "Rasselas;" a
name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive.  In
turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly _


"Is your book interesting?"  I had already formed the intention of
asking her to lend it to me some day.


"I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during
which she examined me.


"What is it about?"  I continued.  I hardly know where I found the
hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step
was contrary to my nature and habits:  but I think her occupation
touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading,
though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or
comprehend the serious or substantial.


"You may look at it," replied the girl, offering me the book.


I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were
less taking than the title:  "Rasselas" looked dull to my trifling
taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright
variety seemed spread over the closely_printed pages.  I returned
it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything
she was about to relapse into her former studious mood:  again
I ventured to disturb her _


"Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means?
What is Lowood Institution?"


"This house where you are come to live."


"And why do they call it Institution?  Is it in any way different
from other schools?"


"It is partly a charity_school:  you and I, and all the rest of
us, are charity_children.  I suppose you are an orphan:  are not
either your father or your mother dead?"


"Both died before I can remember."


"Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents,
and this is called an institution for educating orphans."


"Do we pay no money?  Do they keep us for nothing?"


"We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each."


"Then why do they call us charity_children?"


"Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and
the deficiency is supplied by subscription."


"Who subscribes?"


"Different benevolent_minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood
and in London."


"Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?"


"The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet
records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."


"Why?"


"Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment."


"Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a
watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?"


"To Miss Temple?  Oh, no!  I wish it did:  she has to answer to
Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does.  Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our
food and all our clothes."


"Does he live here?"


"No __ two miles off, at a large hall."


"Is he a good man?"


"He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good."


"Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?"


"Yes."


"And what are the other teachers called?"


"The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the
work, and cuts out __ for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and
pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss
Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second
class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a
pocket_handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame
Pierrot:  she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French."


"Do you like the teachers?"


"Well enough."


"Do you like the little black one, and the Madame _? __ I cannot
pronounce her name as you do."


"Miss Scatcherd is hasty __ you must take care not to offend her;
Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."


"But Miss Temple is the best __ isn't she?"


"Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest,
because she knows far more than they do."


"Have you been long here?"


"Two years."


"Are you an orphan?"


"My mother is dead."


"Are you happy here?"


"You ask rather too many questions.  I have given you answers enough
for the present:  now I want to read."


But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re_entered
the house.  The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely
more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast:
the dinner was served in two huge tin_plated vessels, whence rose
a strong steam redolent of rancid fat.  I found the mess to consist
of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and
cooked together.  Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful
was apportioned to each pupil.  I ate what I could, and wondered
within myself whether every day's fare would be like this.


After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom:  lessons
recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.


The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl
with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace
by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the
middle of the large schoolroom.  The punishment seemed to me in
a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl __ she
looked thirteen or upwards.  I expected she would show signs of
great distress and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor
blushed:  composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of
all eyes.  "How can she bear it so quietly __ so firmly?"  I asked
of myself.  "Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the
earth to open and swallow me up.  She looks as if she were thinking
of something beyond her punishment __ beyond her situation:  of
something not round her nor before her.  I have heard of day_dreams
__ is she in a day_dream now?  Her eyes are fixed on the floor,
but I am sure they do not see it __ her sight seems turned in, gone
down into her heart:  she is looking at what she can remember, I
believe; not at what is really present.  I wonder what sort of a
girl she is __ whether good or naughty."


Soon after five p.m.  we had another meal, consisting of a small
mug of coffee, and half_a_slice of brown bread.  I devoured my
bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad
of as much more __ I was still hungry.  Half_an_hour's recreation
succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of
oat_cake, prayers, and bed.  Such was my first day at Lowood.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 06




The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by
rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the
ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen.  A change
had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen
north_east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom
windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned
the contents of the ewers to ice.


Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible_reading
was over, I felt ready to perish with cold.  Breakfast_time came
at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality
was eatable, the quantity small.  How small my portion seemed!  I
wished it had been doubled.


In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class,
and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me:  hitherto, I
had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now
to become an actor therein.  At first, being little accustomed to
learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult;
the frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and
I was glad when, about three o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith
put into my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with
needle, thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the
schoolroom, with directions to hem the same.  At that hour most of
the others were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round
Miss Scatcherd's chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject
of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in which
each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations
of Miss Scatcherd on the performance.  It was English history:
among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah:  at
the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of
the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention
to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom.  Even in that
obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object
of constant notice:  she was continually addressing to her such
phrases as the following:_


"Burns" (such it seems was her name:  the girls here were all
called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), "Burns, you are
standing on the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately."
"Burns, you poke your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in."  "Burns,
I insist on your holding your head up; I will not have you before
me in that attitude," &c.  &c.


A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed
and the girls examined.  The lesson had comprised part of the reign
of Charles I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and
poundage and ship_money, which most of them appeared unable to
answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when
it reached Burns:  her memory seemed to have retained the substance
of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point.
I kept expecting that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention;
but, instead of that, she suddenly cried out _


"You dirty, disagreeable girl!  you have never cleaned your nails
this morning!"


Burns made no answer:  I wondered at her silence.  "Why," thought
I, "does she not explain that she could neither clean her nails
nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?"


My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a
skein of thread:  while she was winding it, she talked to me from
time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before,
whether I could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me,
I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements.
When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order
of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left
the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were
kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of
twigs tied together at one end.  This ominous tool she presented
to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and
without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly
and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch
of twigs.  Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from
my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a
sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her
pensive face altered its ordinary expression.


"Hardened girl!"  exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct
you of your slatternly habits:  carry the rod away."


Burns obeyed:  I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the
book_closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her
pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.


The play_hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction
of the day at Lowood:  the bit of bread, the draught of coffee
swallowed at five o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not
satisfied hunger:  the long restraint of the day was slackened;
the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning __ its fires being
allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure,
the place of candles, not yet introduced:  the ruddy gloaming, the
licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome
sense of liberty.


On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog
her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables
and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely:
when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked
out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower
panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from
the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside.


Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this
would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted
the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this
obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace!  as it was, I derived
from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished
the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and
the confusion to rise to clamour.


Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to
one of the fire_places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender,
I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by
the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of
the embers.


"Is it still 'Rasselas'?"  I asked, coming behind her.


"Yes," she said, "and I have just finished it."


And in five minutes more she shut it up.  I was glad of this.
"Now," thought I, "I can perhaps get her to talk."  I sat down by
her on the floor.


"What is your name besides Burns?"


"Helen."


"Do you come a long way from here?"


"I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland."


"Will you ever go back?"


"I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future."


"You must wish to leave Lowood?"


"No!  why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and
it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object."


"But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?"


"Cruel?  Not at all!  She is severe:  she dislikes my faults."


"And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist
her.  If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her
hand; I should break it under her nose."


"Probably you would do nothing of the sort:  but if you did, Mr.
Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great
grief to your relations.  It is far better to endure patiently a
smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action
whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and
besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil."


"But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to
stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a
great girl:  I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it."


"Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it:
it is weak and silly to say you CANNOT BEAR what it is your fate
to be required to bear."


I heard her with wonder:  I could not comprehend this doctrine of
endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with
the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser.  Still I felt that
Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes.  I
suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder
the matter deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient
season.


"You say you have faults, Helen:  what are they?  To me you seem
very good."


"Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances:  I am, as Miss
Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things,
in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should
learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you,
I cannot BEAR to be subjected to systematic arrangements.  This
is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat,
punctual, and particular."


"And cross and cruel," I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my
addition:  she kept silence.


"Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?"


At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over
her grave face.


"Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any
one, even the worst in the school:  she sees my errors, and tells
me of them gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives
me my meed liberally.  One strong proof of my wretchedly defective
nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have
not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though
I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and
foresight."


"That is curious," said I, "it is so easy to be careful."


"For YOU I have no doubt it is.  I observed you in your class this
morning, and saw you were closely attentive:  your thoughts never
seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned
you.  Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening
to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often
I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream.
Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I
hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through
Deepden, near our house; __ then, when it comes to my turn to reply,
I have to be awakened; and having heard nothing of what was read
for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready."


"Yet how well you replied this afternoon."


"It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had
interested me.  This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I
was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly
and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what
a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he
could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown.  If he had
but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the
spirit of the age was tending!  Still, I like Charles __ I respect
him __ I pity him, poor murdered king!  Yes, his enemies were the
worst:  they shed blood they had no right to shed.  How dared they
kill him!"


Helen was talking to herself now:  she had forgotten I could not
very well understand her __ that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of
the subject she discussed.  I recalled her to my level.


"And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?"


"No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something
to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is
singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates
is often just what I wished to gain."


"Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"


"Yes, in a passive way:  I make no effort; I follow as inclination
guides me.  There is no merit in such goodness."


"A great deal:  you are good to those who are good to you.  It is
all I ever desire to be.  If people were always kind and obedient
to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have
it all their own way:  they would never feel afraid, and so they
would never alter, but would grow worse and worse.  When we are
struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard;
I am sure we should __ so hard as to teach the person who struck
us never to do it again."


"You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older:  as yet
you are but a little untaught girl."


"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do
to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who
punish me unjustly.  It is as natural as that I should love those
who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is
deserved."


"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and
civilised nations disown it."


"How?  I don't understand."


"It is not violence that best overcomes hate __ nor vengeance that
most certainly heals injury."


"What then?"


"Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He
acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example."


"What does He say?"


"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that
hate you and despitefully use you."


"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless
her son John, which is impossible."


In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded
forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings
and resentments.  Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I
felt, without reserve or softening.


Helen heard me patiently to the end:  I expected she would then
make a remark, but she said nothing.


"Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard_hearted, bad
woman?"


"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she
dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but
how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you!  What
a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made
on your heart!  No ill_usage so brands its record on my feelings.
Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity,
together with the passionate emotions it excited?  Life appears
to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering
wrongs.  We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in
this world:  but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall
put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement
and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and
only the spark of the spirit will remain, __ the impalpable principle
of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire
the creature:  whence it came it will return; perhaps again to
be communicated to some being higher than man __ perhaps to pass
through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten
to the seraph!  Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered
to degenerate from man to fiend?  No; I cannot believe that:  I
hold another creed:  which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom
mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling:  for it
extends hope to all:  it makes Eternity a rest __ a mighty home, not
a terror and an abyss.  Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly
distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely
forgive the first while I abhor the last:  with this creed revenge
never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me,
injustice never crushes me too low:  I live in calm, looking to
the end."


Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished
this sentence.  I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk
to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts.  She was not
allowed much time for meditation:  a monitor, a great rough girl,
presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent _


"Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and
fold up your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come
and look at it!"


Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor
without reply as without delay.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 07




My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden
age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in
habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks.  The fear of
failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships
of my lot; though these were no trifles.


During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows,
and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented
our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but
within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open
air.  Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe
cold:  we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted
there:  our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains,
as were our feet:  I remember well the distracting irritation I
endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and
the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes
in the morning.  Then the scanty supply of food was distressing:
with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely
sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid.  From this deficiency
of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger
pupils:  whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they
would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion.  Many
a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of
brown bread distributed at tea_time; and after relinquishing to a
third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the
remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by
the exigency of hunger.


Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season.  We had to walk
two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated.
We set out cold, we arrived at church colder:  during the morning
service we became almost paralysed.  It was too far to return
to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same
penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served
round between the services.


At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and
hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of
snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.


I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our
drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered,
gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and
example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said,
"like stalwart soldiers."  The other teachers, poor things, were
generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of
cheering others.


How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got
back!  But, to the little ones at least, this was denied:  each
hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double
row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched
in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.


A little solace came at tea_time, in the shape of a double ration
of bread __ a whole, instead of a half, slice __ with the delicious
addition of a thin scrape of butter:  it was the hebdomadal treat
to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath.  I generally
contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself;
but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.


The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church
Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St.
Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller,
whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness.  A frequent
interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of
Eutychus by some half_dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with
sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the
fourth form, and be taken up half dead.  The remedy was, to thrust
them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them
to stand there till the sermon was finished.  Sometimes their
feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then
propped up with the monitors' high stools.


I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed
that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first
month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend
the archdeacon:  his absence was a relief to me.  I need not say
that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming:  but come he
did at last.


One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting
with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my
eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure
just passing:  I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline;
and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included,
rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to
ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted.  A long stride measured
the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself
had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so
ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead.  I now glanced sideways
at this piece of architecture.  Yes, I was right:  it was Mr.
Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower,
and more rigid than ever.


I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too
well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my
disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise
Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature.  All along
I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise, __ I had been
looking out daily for the "Coming Man," whose information respecting
my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for
ever:  now there he was.


He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear:  I did
not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched
her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its
dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt.  I listened
too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room,
I caught most of what he said:  its import relieved me from immediate
apprehension.


"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do;
it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico
chemises, and I sorted the needles to match.  You may tell Miss
Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles,
but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not,
on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil:
if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them.  And,
O ma'am!  I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to! __
when I was here last, I went into the kitchen_garden and examined
the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black hose
in a very bad state of repair:  from the size of the holes in them
I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time."


He paused.


"Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple.


"And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the
girls have two clean tuckers in the week:  it is too much; the
rules limit them to one."


"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir.  Agnes and Catherine
Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton
last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for
the occasion."


Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.


"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance
occur too often.  And there is another thing which surprised me;
I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch,
consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to
the girls during the past fortnight.  How is this?  I looked over
the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned.  Who
introduced this innovation?  and by what authority?"


"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss
Temple:  "the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could
not possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting
till dinner_time."


"Madam, allow me an instant.  You are aware that my plan in bringing
up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and
indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self_denying.  Should
any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such
as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a
dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with
something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body
and obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved
to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them
to evince fortitude under temporary privation.  A brief address on
those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor
would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the
primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations
of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take
up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God; to His divine consolations, "If ye suffer hunger or
thirst for My sake, happy are ye."  Oh, madam, when you put bread
and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths,
you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how
you starve their immortal souls!"


Mr. Brocklehurst again paused __ perhaps overcome by his feelings.
Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her;
but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale
as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of
that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have
required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled
gradually into petrified severity.


Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands
behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school.  Suddenly
his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled
or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents
than he had hitherto used _


"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what __ WHAT is that girl with curled
hair?  Red hair, ma'am, curled __ curled all over?"  And extending
his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he
did so.


"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.


"Julia Severn, ma'am!  And why has she, or any other, curled hair?
Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house,
does she conform to the world so openly __ here in an evangelical,
charitable establishment __ as to wear her hair one mass of curls?"


"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more
quietly.


"Naturally!  Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish
these girls to be the children of Grace:  and why that abundance?
I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be
arranged closely, modestly, plainly.  Miss Temple, that girl's hair
must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to_morrow:  and I
see others who have far too much of the excrescence __ that tall
girl, tell her to turn round.  Tell all the first form to rise up
and direct their faces to the wall."


Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth
away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order,
however, and when the first class could take in what was required
of them, they obeyed.  Leaning a little back on my bench, I could
see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this
manoeuvre:  it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too;
he would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the
outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his
interference than he imagined.


He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes,
then pronounced sentence.  These words fell like the knell of doom _


"All those top_knots must be cut off."


Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.


"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not
of this world:  my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts
of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame_facedness
and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each
of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in
plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat,
must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of __ "


Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted:  three other visitors, ladies,
now entered the room.  They ought to have come a little sooner to
have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired
in velvet, silk, and furs.  The two younger of the trio (fine girls
of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion,
shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful
head_dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled;
the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with
ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.


These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs.
and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the
top of the room.  It seems they had come in the carriage with their
reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of
the room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper,
questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent.  They
now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith,
who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of
the dormitories:  but I had no time to listen to what they said;
other matters called off and enchanted my attention.


Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and
Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to
secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if
I could only elude observation.  To this end, I had sat well back
on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my
slate in such a manner as to conceal my face:  I might have escaped
notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from
my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every
eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick
up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst.
It came.


"A careless girl!"  said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after
__ "It is the new pupil, I perceive."  And before I could draw
breath, "I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her."
Then aloud:  how loud it seemed to me!  "Let the child who broke
her slate come forward!"


Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed:  but
the two great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs
and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently
assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel _


"Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be
punished."


The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.


"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought
I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co.
bounded in my pulses at the conviction.  I was no Helen Burns.


"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high
one from which a monitor had just risen:  it was brought.


"Place the child upon it."


And I was placed there, by whom I don't know:  I was in no condition
to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up
to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard
of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses
and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.


Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.


"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers,
and children, you all see this girl?"


Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning_glasses
against my scorched skin.


"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary
form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He
has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a
marked character.  Who would think that the Evil One had already
found a servant and agent in her?  Yet such, I grieve to say, is
the case."


A pause __ in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and
to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer
to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.


"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos,
"this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to
warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is
a little castaway:  not a member of the true flock, but evidently
an interloper and an alien.  You must be on your guard against
her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company,
exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse.
Teachers, you must watch her:  keep your eyes on her movements,
weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to
save her soul:  if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my
tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native
of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its
prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut __ this girl is __
a liar!"


Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in
perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts
produce their pocket_handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,
while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two
younger ones whispered, "How shocking!"  Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.


"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable
lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own
daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl
repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her
excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young
ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their
purity:  she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews
of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and,
teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to
stagnate round her."


With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button
of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed
to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in
state from the room.  Turning at the door, my judge said _


"Let her stand half_an_hour longer on that stool, and let no one
speak to her during the remainder of the day."


There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear
the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room,
was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy.  What
my sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all
rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came
up and passed me:  in passing, she lifted her eyes.  What a strange
light inspired them!  What an extraordinary sensation that ray
sent through me!  How the new feeling bore me up!  It was as if a
martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength
in the transit.  I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head,
and took a firm stand on the stool.  Helen Burns asked some slight
question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality
of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she
again went by.  What a smile!  I remember it now, and I know that
it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up
her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a
reflection from the aspect of an angel.  Yet at that moment Helen
Burns wore on her arm "the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I
had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and
water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying
it out.  Such is the imperfect nature of man!  such spots are there
on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's
can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full
brightness of the orb.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 08




Ere the half_hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed,
and all were gone into the refectory to tea.  I now ventured to
descend:  it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on
the floor.  The spell by which I had been so far supported began
to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the
grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground.
Now I wept:  Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left
to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards.  I
had meant to be so good, and to do so much at Lowood:  to make so
many friends, to earn respect and win affection.  Already I had
made visible progress:  that very morning I had reached the head
of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss Temple had
smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to
let me learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement two
months longer:  and then I was well received by my fellow_pupils;
treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by
any; now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever
rise more?


"Never," I thought; and ardently I wished to die.  While sobbing
out this wish in broken accents, some one approached:  I started
up __ again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed
her coming up the long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and
bread.


"Come, eat something," she said; but I put both away from me,
feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present
condition.  Helen regarded me, probably with surprise:  I could not
now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep
aloud.  She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees
with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude
she remained silent as an Indian.  I was the first who spoke _


"Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be
a liar?"


"Everybody, Jane?  Why, there are only eighty people who have heard
you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions."


"But what have I to do with millions?  The eighty, I know, despise
me."


"Jane, you are mistaken:  probably not one in the school either
despises or dislikes you:  many, I am sure, pity you much."


"How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?"


"Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god:  nor is he even a great and admired
man:  he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself
liked.  Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would
have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is,
the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared.  Teachers
and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly
feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in
doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more
evidently for their temporary suppression.  Besides, Jane" __ she
paused.


"Well, Helen?"  said I, putting my hand into hers:  she
chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on _


"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your
own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would
not be without friends."


"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough:
if others don't love me I would rather die than live __ I cannot
bear to be solitary and hated, Helen.  Look here; to gain some
real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly
love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or
to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse,
and let it dash its hoof at my chest __ "


"Hush, Jane!  you think too much of the love of human beings; you
are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created
your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other
resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you.
Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible
world and a kingdom of spirits:  that world is round us, for it is
everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned
to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote
us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures,
recognise our innocence (if innocent we be:  as I know you are of
this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated
at second_hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in
your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the
separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward.
Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life
is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness
__ to glory?"


I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she
imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness.  I felt the
impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it
came; and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast
and coughed a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to
yield to a vague concern for her.


Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist;
she drew me to her, and we reposed in silence.  We had not sat long
thus, when another person came in.  Some heavy clouds, swept from
the sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light,
streaming in through a window near, shone full both on us and on
the approaching figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple.


"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you
in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too."


We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to thread
some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached
her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful.  Miss
Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm_chair on one
side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to
her side.


"Is it all over?"  she asked, looking down at my face.  "Have you
cried your grief away?"


"I am afraid I never shall do that."


"Why?"


"Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody
else, will now think me wicked."


"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child.
Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us."


"Shall I, Miss Temple?"


"You will," said she, passing her arm round me.  "And now tell me
who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?"


"Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife.  My uncle is dead, and he left me to
her care."


"Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?"


"No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it:  but my uncle, as
I have often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he
died that she would always keep me."


"Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when
a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own
defence.  You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to
me as well as you can.  Say whatever your memory suggests is true;
but add nothing and exaggerate nothing."


I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate
__ most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order
to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story
of my sad childhood.  Exhausted by emotion, my language was more
subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and
mindful of Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment,
I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than
ordinary.  Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible:
I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.


In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come
to see me after the fit:  for I never forgot the, to me, frightful
episode of the red_room:  in detailing which, my excitement was
sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften
in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when
Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me
a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.


I had finished:  Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes
in silence; she then said _


"I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply
agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from
every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now."


She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well
contented to stand, for I derived a child's pleasure from the
contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her
white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark
eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.


"How are you to_night, Helen?  Have you coughed much to_day?"


"Not quite so much, I think, ma'am."


"And the pain in your chest?"


"It is a little better."


Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then
she returned to her own seat:  as she resumed it, I heard her sigh
low.  She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself,
she said cheerfully _


"But you two are my visitors to_night; I must treat you as such."
She rang her bell.


"Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have not yet
had tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies."


And a tray was soon brought.  How pretty, to my eyes, did the china
cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near
the fire!  How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the
scent of the toast!  of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was
beginning to be hungry) discerned only a very small portion:  Miss
Temple discerned it too.


"Barbara," said she, "can you not bring a little more bread and
butter?  There is not enough for three."


Barbara went out:  she returned soon _


"Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity."


Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper:  a woman after
Mr. Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone
and iron.


"Oh, very well!"  returned Miss Temple; "we must make it do,
Barbara, I suppose."  And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling,
"Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this
once."


Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed
before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel
of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel
wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good_sized
seed_cake.


"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," said
she, "but as there is so little toast, you must have it now," and
she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.


We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the
least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification
with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished
appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.


Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire;
we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed
between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted
to hear.


Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state
in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded
deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager:  something which
chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to
her, by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now:
but as to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.


The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness
of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these,
something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within
her.  They woke, they kindled:  first, they glowed in the bright
tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale
and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes,
which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of
Miss Temple's __ a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash,
nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance.  Then
her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I
cannot tell.  Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous
enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence?
Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me,
memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a
very brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence.


They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times
past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or
guessed at:  they spoke of books:  how many they had read!  What
stores of knowledge they possessed!  Then they seemed so familiar
with French names and French authors:  but my amazement reached
its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched
a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking
a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil;
and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding
line.  She had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime!
no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both,
saying, as she drew us to her heart _


"God bless you, my children!"


Helen she held a little longer than me:  she let her go more
reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for
her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear
from her cheek.


On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd:  she
was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's, and
when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told
that to_morrow she should have half_a_dozen of untidily folded
articles pinned to her shoulder.


"My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me,
in a low voice:  "I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot."


Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece
of pasteboard the word "Slattern," and bound it like a phylactery
round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign_ looking forehead.
She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as
a deserved punishment.  The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after
afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into
the fire:  the fury of which she was incapable had been burning
in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been
scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave
me an intolerable pain at the heart.


About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss
Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer:  it
appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account.  Miss
Temple, having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry
had been made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that
she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared
from every imputation.  The teachers then shook hands with me and
kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my
companions.


Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work
afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty:  I
toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my
memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise
sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class;
in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing.
I learned the first two tenses of the verb ETRE, and sketched my
first cottage (whose walls, by_the_bye, outrivalled in slope those of
the leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day.  That night, on going
to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of
hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was
wont to amuse my inward cravings:  I feasted instead on the spectacle
of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own
hands:  freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and
ruins, Cuyp_like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies
hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of
wren's nests enclosing pearl_like eggs, wreathed about with young
ivy sprays.  I examined, too, in thought, the possibility of
my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French
story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was that
problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.


Well has Solomon said __ "Better is a dinner of herbs where love
is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."


I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for
Gateshead and its daily luxuries.






Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 09




But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened.
Spring drew on:  she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter
had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated.
My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air
of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings
of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian
temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure
the play_hour passed in the garden:  sometimes on a sunny day it
began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over
those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought
that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter
traces of her steps.  Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snow_
drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden_eyed pansies.  On
Thursday afternoons (half_holidays) we now took walks, and found
still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.


I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the
horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike_guarded
walls of our garden:  this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble
summits girdling a great hill_hollow, rich in verdure and shadow;
in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies.  How
different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath
the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow! __
when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds
along those purple peaks, and rolled down "ing" and holm till they
blended with the frozen fog of the beck!  That beck itself was then
a torrent, turbid and curbless:  it tore asunder the wood, and sent
a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or
whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, THAT showed only
ranks of skeletons.


April advanced to May:  a bright serene May it was; days of blue
sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled
up its duration.  And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood
shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its
great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life;
woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered
varieties of moss filled its hollows, and it made a strange
ground_sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants:  I
have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings
of the sweetest lustre.  All this I enjoyed often and fully, free,
unwatched, and almost alone:  for this unwonted liberty and pleasure
there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to advert.


Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak
of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a
stream?  Assuredly, pleasant enough:  but whether healthy or not
is another question.


That forest_dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and
fog_bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring,
crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded
schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the
seminary into an hospital.


Semi_starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the
pupils to receive infection:  forty_five out of the eighty girls
lay ill at one time.  Classes were broken up, rules relaxed.  The
few who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license;
because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent
exercise to keep them in health:  and had it been otherwise, no
one had leisure to watch or restrain them.  Miss Temple's whole
attention was absorbed by the patients:  she lived in the sick_room,
never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night.
The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other
necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were
fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing
to remove them from the seat of contagion.  Many, already smitten,
went home only to die:  some died at the school, and were buried
quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay.


While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death
its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its
walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells,
the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia
of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills
and beautiful woodland out of doors.  Its garden, too, glowed
with flowers:  hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had
opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little
beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the
sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and
apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of
the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of
herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.


But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties
of the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like
gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where
we liked:  we lived better too.  Mr. Brocklehurst and his family
never came near Lowood now:  household matters were not scrutinised
into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear
of infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton
Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with
comparative liberality.  Besides, there were fewer to feed; the
sick could eat little; our breakfast_basins were better filled;
when there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often
happened, she would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick
slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to
the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined
sumptuously.


My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry
from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading
through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot.  The stone was
just broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me,
at that time my chosen comrade __ one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd,
observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly
because she was witty and original, and partly because she had a
manner which set me at my ease.  Some years older than I, she knew
more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear:
with her my curiosity found gratification:  to my faults also she
gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I
said.  She had a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to
inform, I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving
much entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual
intercourse.


And where, meantime, was Helen Burns?  Why did I not spend these
sweet days of liberty with her?  Had I forgotten her?  or was I so
worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society?  Surely the
Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance:
she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy
and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken
truth of Helen, she was qualified to give those who enjoyed the
privilege of her converse a taste of far higher things.


True, reader; and I knew and felt this:  and though I am a defective
being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired
of Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment
of attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever
animated my heart.  How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at
all times and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and
faithful friendship, which ill_humour never soured, nor irritation
never troubled?  But Helen was ill at present:  for some weeks she
had been removed from my sight to I knew not what room upstairs.
She was not, I was told, in the hospital portion of the house with
the fever patients; for her complaint was consumption, not typhus:
and by consumption I, in my ignorance, understood something mild,
which time and care would be sure to alleviate.


I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming
downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss
Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed
to go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window,
and then not distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and sat at
a distance under the verandah.


One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late
with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves
from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our
way, and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman
lived, who looked after a herd of half_wild swine that fed on the
mast in the wood.  When we got back, it was after moonrise:  a
pony, which we knew to be the surgeon's, was standing at the garden
door.  Mary Ann remarked that she supposed some one must be very
ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at that time of the evening.
She went into the house; I stayed behind a few minutes to plant in
my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in the forest, and which
I feared would wither if I left them till the morning.  This done,
I lingered yet a little longer:  the flowers smelt so sweet as
the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm;
the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the
morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east.  I was
noting these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it
entered my mind as it had never done before:_


"How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of
dying!  This world is pleasant __ it would be dreary to be called
from it, and to have to go who knows where?"


And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what
had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the
first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing
behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed
gulf:  it felt the one point where it stood __ the present; all the
rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the
thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos.  While pondering
this new idea, I heard the front door open; Mr. Bates came out,
and with him was a nurse.  After she had seen him mount his horse
and depart, she was about to close the door, but I ran up to her.


"How is Helen Burns?"


"Very poorly," was the answer.


"Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?"


"Yes."


"And what does he say about her?"


"He says she'll not be here long."


This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed
the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to
her own home.  I should not have suspected that it meant she was
dying; but I knew instantly now!  It opened clear on my comprehension
that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and
that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such
region there were.  I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong
thrill of grief, then a desire __ a necessity to see her; and I
asked in what room she lay.


"She is in Miss Temple's room," said the nurse.


"May I go up and speak to her?"


"Oh no, child!  It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come
in; you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling."


The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which
led to the schoolroom:  I was just in time; it was nine o'clock,
and Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed.


It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I __ not
having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect
silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in
profound repose __ rose softly, put on my frock over my night_dress,
and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest
of Miss Temple's room.  It was quite at the other end of the house;
but I knew my way; and the light of the unclouded summer moon,
entering here and there at passage windows, enabled me to find it
without difficulty.  An odour of camphor and burnt vinegar warned
me when I came near the fever room:  and I passed its door quickly,
fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should hear me.  I
dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I MUST see Helen, __
I must embrace her before she died, __ I must give her one last
kiss, exchange with her one last word.


Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house
below, and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two
doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then
just opposite to me was Miss Temple's room.  A light shone through
the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded
the vicinity.  Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar;
probably to admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness.
Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulses __ soul and
senses quivering with keen throes __ I put it back and looked in.
My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death.


Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white curtains,
there stood a little crib.  I saw the outline of a form under the
clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings:  the nurse I had
spoken to in the garden sat in an easy_chair asleep; an unsnuffed
candle burnt dimly on the table.  Miss Temple was not to be seen:
I knew afterwards that she had been called to a delirious patient
in the fever_room.  I advanced; then paused by the crib side:  my
hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew
it.  I still recoiled at the dread of seeing a corpse.


"Helen!"  I whispered softly, "are you awake?"


She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale,
wasted, but quite composed:  she looked so little changed that my
fear was instantly dissipated.


"Can it be you, Jane?"  she asked, in her own gentle voice.


"Oh!"  I thought, "she is not going to die; they are mistaken:  she
could not speak and look so calmly if she were."


I got on to her crib and kissed her:  her forehead was cold, and
her cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but
she smiled as of old.


"Why are you come here, Jane?  It is past eleven o'clock:  I heard
it strike some minutes since."


"I came to see you, Helen:  I heard you were very ill, and I could
not sleep till I had spoken to you."


"You came to bid me good_bye, then:  you are just in time probably."


"Are you going somewhere, Helen?  Are you going home?"


"Yes; to my long home __ my last home."


"No, no, Helen!"  I stopped, distressed.  While I tried to devour
my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake
the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted;
then she whispered _


"Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with
my quilt."


I did so:  she put her arm over me, and I nestled close
to her.  After a long silence, she resumed, still whispering _


"I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must
be sure and not grieve:  there is nothing to grieve about.  We
all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not
painful; it is gentle and gradual:  my mind is at rest.  I leave
no one to regret me much:  I have only a father; and he is lately
married, and will not miss me.  By dying young, I shall escape
great sufferings.  I had not qualities or talents to make my way
very well in the world:  I should have been continually at fault."


"But where are you going to, Helen?  Can you see?  Do you know?"


"I believe; I have faith:  I am going to God."


"Where is God?  What is God?"


"My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created.  I
rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness:
I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore
me to Him, reveal Him to me."


"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven,
and that our souls can get to it when we die?"


"I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can
resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving.  God is my
father; God is my friend:  I love Him; I believe He loves me."


"And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?"


"You will come to the same region of happiness:  be received by
the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane."


Again I questioned, but this time only in thought.  "Where is
that region?  Does it exist?"  And I clasped my arms closer round
Helen; she seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could
not let her go; I lay with my face hidden on her neck.  Presently
she said, in the sweetest tone _


"How comfortable I am!  That last fit of coughing has tired me a
little; I feel as if I could sleep:  but don't leave me, Jane; I
like to have you near me."


"I'll stay with you, DEAR Helen:  no one shall take me away."


"Are you warm, darling?"


"Yes."


"Good_night, Jane."


"Good_night, Helen."


She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered.


When I awoke it was day:  an unusual movement roused me; I looked
up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying
me through the passage back to the dormitory.  I was not reprimanded
for leaving my bed; people had something else to think about; no
explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or
two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own
room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against
Helen Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck.  I was asleep, and
Helen was __ dead.


Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard:  for fifteen years after
her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey
marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word
"Resurgam."