JANE EYRE
PART 4
CHAPTER IV
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 be 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.
To be continued
