Books: Jane Eyre

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"Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were
very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now."

"How long will you stay?"

"As short a time as possible, sir."

"Promise me only to stay a week -- "

"I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it."

"At all events you WILL come back: you will not be induced under
any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?"

"Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well."

"And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone."

"No, sir, she has sent her coachman."

"A person to be trusted?"

"Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family."

Mr. Rochester meditated. "When do you wish to go?"

"Early to-morrow morning, sir."

"Well, you must have some money; you can't travel without money,
and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet.
How much have you in the world, Jane?" he asked, smiling.

I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. "Five shillings, sir."
He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over
it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-
book: "Here," said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds,
and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change.

"I don't want change; you know that. Take your wages."

I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled
at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said -

"Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps,
stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is
it not plenty?"

"Yes, sir, but now you owe me five."

"Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds."

"Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business
to you while I have the opportunity."

"Matter of business? I am curious to hear it."

"You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly
to be married?"

"Yes; what then?"

"In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you
will perceive the necessity of it."

"To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over
her rather too emphatically? There's sense in the suggestion; not
a doubt of it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of
course, must march straight to -- the devil?"

"I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere."

"In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion
of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some
minutes.

"And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited
by you to seek a place, I suppose?"

"No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify
me in asking favours of them -- but I shall advertise."

"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your
peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign
instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use
for it."

"And so have I, sir," I returned, putting my hands and my purse
behind me. "I could not spare the money on any account."

"Little niggard!" said he, "refusing me a pecuniary request! Give
me five pounds, Jane."

"Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence."

"Just let me look at the cash."

"No, sir; you are not to be trusted."

"Jane!"

"Sir?"

"Promise me one thing."

"I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to
perform."

"Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me.
I'll find you one in time."

"I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise
that I and Adele shall be both safe out of the house before your
bride enters it."

"Very well! very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow,
then?"

"Yes, sir; early."

"Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?"

"No, sir, I must prepare for the journey."

"Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?"

"I suppose so, sir."

"And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach
me; I'm not quite up to it."

"They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer."

"Then say it."

"Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present."

"What must I say?"

"The same, if you like, sir."

"Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?"

"Yes?"

"It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should
like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook
hands, for instance; but no -- that would not content me either.
So you'll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?"

"It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty
word as in many."

"Very likely; but it is blank and cool -- 'Farewell.'"

"How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?"
I asked myself; "I want to commence my packing." The dinner-bell
rang, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I
saw him no more during the day, and was off before he had risen in
the morning.

I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the afternoon
of the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the
hall. It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were
hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate
and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear.
Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and
his sister played quietly in a corner.

"Bless you! -- I knew you would come!" exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as
I entered.

"Yes, Bessie," said I, after I had kissed her; "and I trust I am
not too late. How is Mrs. Reed? -- Alive still, I hope."

"Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was.
The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly
thinks she will finally recover."

"Has she mentioned me lately?"

"She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would
come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was
up at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the
afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself
here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?"

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the
cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking
off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and
tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to
be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to
let her undress me when a child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about
-- setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and
butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little
Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give
me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well
as her light foot and good looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me
to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served
at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round
stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to
accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery
chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort
of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only
a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I
told her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and
that he treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to
describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the
house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest: they
were precisely of the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me
my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for
the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine
years ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark,
misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a
desperate and embittered heart -- a sense of outlawry and almost
of reprobation -- to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that
bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again
rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an
aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth;
but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and
less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs,
too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.

"You shall go into the breakfast-room first," said Bessie, as she
preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."

In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every
article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was
first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon
still covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I
could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick's British Birds occupying
their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the
Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not
changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.

Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall
as Miss Ingram -- very thin too, with a sallow face and severe
mien. There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented
by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress,
a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and
the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix.
This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance
to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.

The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana
I remembered -- the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was
a full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome
and regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow
hair. The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so
different from her sister's -- so much more flowing and becoming
-- it looked as stylish as the other's looked puritanical.

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother -- and only
one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm
eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of
jaw and chin -- perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an
indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous
and buxom.

Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed
me by the name of "Miss Eyre." Eliza's greeting was delivered in
a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again,
fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana
added to her "How d'ye do?" several commonplaces about my journey,
the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and
accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to
foot -- now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and
now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young
ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they
think you a "quiz" without actually saying the words. A certain
superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone,
express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing
them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.

A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that
power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I
was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of
the one and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other -- Eliza did
not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other
things to think about; within the last few months feelings had
been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise
-- pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been
excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow -- that
their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.

"How is Mrs. Reed?" I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana,
who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an
unexpected liberty.

"Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt
if you can see her to-night."

"If," said I, "you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come,
I should be much obliged to you."

Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and
wide. "I know she had a particular wish to see me," I added, "and
I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely
necessary."

"Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening," remarked Eliza. I
soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and
said I would just step out to Bessie -- who was, I dared say, in the
kitchen -- and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed
to receive me or not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and
despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures.
It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance:
received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved
to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed
to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken
a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with
her till she was better -- or dead: as to her daughters' pride or
folly, I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it.
So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told
her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my
trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I
met Bessie on the landing.

"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come
and let us see if she will know you."

I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I
had so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former
days. I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded
light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was
the great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the
toilet-table, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a
hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences
by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting
to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk
there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or
shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and
leant over the high-piled pillows.

Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the
familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings
of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had
left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now
with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings,
and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries -- to be
reconciled and clasp hands in amity.

The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever -- there
was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat
raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me
menace and hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors
and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I
stooped down and kissed her: she looked at me.

"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.

"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"

I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought
it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened
on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine
kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But
unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural
antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away,
and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night
was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that
her opinion of me -- her feeling towards me -- was unchanged and
unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye -- opaque to tenderness,
indissoluble to tears -- that she was resolved to consider me bad
to the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous
pleasure: only a sense of mortification.

I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination
to subdue her -- to be her mistress in spite both of her nature
and her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered
them back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I
sat down and leaned over the pillow.

"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here; and it is my intention
to stay till I see how you get on."

"Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?"

"Yes."

"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some
things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and
I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something
I wished to say -- let me see -- "

The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken
place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the
bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt,
fixed it down: she was at once irritated.

"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast.
Are you Jane Eyre?"

"I am Jane Eyre."

"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe.
Such a burden to be left on my hands -- and so much annoyance as she
caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition,
and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural
watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me once like
something mad, or like a fiend -- no child ever spoke or looked as
she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did they
do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the
pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did -- I
wish she had died!"

"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"

"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only
sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's
disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of
her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby;
though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for
its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it --
a sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all
night long -- not screaming heartily like any other child, but
whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it
and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he
ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children
friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it,
and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his
last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but
an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature.
I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a
workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all
resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like
my brothers -- he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease
tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more money to give
him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and
shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never submit to
do that -- yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes
in paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and
always loses -- poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk
and degraded -- his look is frightful -- I feel ashamed for him
when I see him."

She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her
now," said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.

"Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards
night -- in the morning she is calmer."

I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "there is another thing
I wished to say. He threatens me -- he continually threatens me
with his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him
laid out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and
blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles.
What is to be done? How is the money to be had?"

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught:
she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more
composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her.

More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with
her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor
forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime,
I got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were
very cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing,
reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her
sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the
hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem
at a loss for occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing
materials with me, and they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used
to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself
in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened
momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of
imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon,
and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and
a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an
elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.

One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was
to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave
it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper
a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage:
that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to
fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must
be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined
nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-
looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided
cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were
wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above
the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last,
because they required the most careful working. I drew them
large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre;
the irids lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing,"
I thought, as I surveyed the effect: "they want more force and
spirit;" and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might
flash more brilliantly -- a happy touch or two secured success.
There, I had a friend's face under my gaze; and what did it signify
that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it;
I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content.

"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had
approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy
head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied:
it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester.
But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana
also advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but
she called that "an ugly man." They both seemed surprised at my
skill. I offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn,
sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I
promised to contribute a water-colour drawing: this put her at once
into good humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we
had been out two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation:
she had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she
had spent in London two seasons ago -- of the admiration she had
there excited -- the attention she had received; and I even got
hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of the
afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft
conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented;
and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day
improvised by her for my benefit. The communications were renewed
from day to day: they always ran on the same theme -- herself, her
loves, and woes. It was strange she never once adverted either to
her mother's illness, or her brother's death, or the present gloomy
state of the family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with
reminiscences of past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations
to come. She passed about five minutes each day in her mother's
sick-room, and no more.

Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I
never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was
difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result
of her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know
not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal
she divided her time into regular portions, and each hour had its
allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which
I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once
what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said, "the
Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread,
the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a
carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article,
she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church
lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary;
two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the
regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no
conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine
sufficed for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence
of any incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity.