Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three
combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never
laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own.
Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly
estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source
to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And
signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man.
When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha
Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was
a sure sign of trouble, either to one’s self or one’s kin. The saying might have worn out of
my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix
it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister.
Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week
scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an
infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee,
sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in
running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it
nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced,
whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the
moment I entered the land of slumber.
I did not like this iteration of one idea—this strange recurrence of one image, and I grew
nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from
companionship with this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night
when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned
downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. On repairing
thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman’s servant:
he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with
a crape band.
“I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,” he said, rising as I entered; “but my name is
Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine
years since, and I live there still.”
“Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give me a ride
sometimes on Miss Georgiana’s bay pony. And how is Bessie? You are married to
Bessie?”
“Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another little one about
two months since—we have three now—and both mother and child are thriving.”
“And are the family well at the house, Robert?”
“I am sorry I can’t give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at present—in
great trouble.”
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“I hope no one is dead,” I said, glancing at his black dress. He too looked down at the
crape round his hat and replied—
“Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.”
“Mr. John?”
“Yes.”
“And how does his mother bear it?”
“Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been very wild: these
last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking.”
“I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.”
“Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate amongst the
worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into jail: his mother helped him
out twice, but as soon as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits. His
head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever
heard. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give up
all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance;
so he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died, God
knows!—they say he killed himself.”
I was silent: the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed—
“Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very stout, but was not
strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down.
The information about Mr. John’s death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it
brought on a stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed
rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to
my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie
understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, ‘Bring
Jane—fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her.’ Bessie is not sure whether she is in her
right mind, or means anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana,
and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother
grew so restless, and said, ‘Jane, Jane,’ so many times, that at last they consented. I left
Gateshead yesterday: and if you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with
me early to-morrow morning.”
“Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.”
“I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: but I suppose you
will have to ask leave before you can get off?”
“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ hall, and
recommended him to the care of John’s wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went
in search of Mr. Rochester.
He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the
grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;—yes: she believed he was playing
billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the
hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton,
and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some courage to disturb so
interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the
master where he stood at Miss Ingram’s side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at
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me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, “What can the creeping creature want now?”
and when I said, in a low voice, “Mr. Rochester,” she made a movement as if tempted to
order me away. I remember her appearance at the moment—it was very graceful and
very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was
twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did
not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments.
“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned
to see who the “person” was. He made a curious grimace—one of his strange and
equivocal demonstrations—threw down his cue and followed me from the room.
“Well, Jane?” he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had
shut.
“If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.”
“What to do?—where to go?”
“To see a sick lady who has sent for me.”
“What sick lady?—where does she live?”
“At Gateshead; in ——shire.”
“-shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for people to see her
that distance?”
“Her name is Reed, sir—Mrs. Reed.”
“Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.”
“It is his widow, sir.”
“And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?”
“Mr. Reed was my uncle—my mother’s brother.”
“The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you had no
relations.”
“None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off.”
“Why?”
“Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.”
“But Reed left children?—you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed
of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and
Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for
her beauty a season or two ago in London.”
“John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his family, and is
supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on
an apoplectic attack.”
“And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of running a
hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her:
besides, you say she cast you off.”
“Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could
not be easy to neglect her wishes now.”
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“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, Adèle 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. Adèle, 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.”
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“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 Adèle 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.”
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“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
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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,
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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
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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!”
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“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-
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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
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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.
She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than usual, that
John’s conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound
affliction to her: but she had now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution.
Her own fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died—and it was
wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or linger
long—she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a retirement where punctual
habits would be permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers
between herself and a frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.
“Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had had. She
would not be burdened with her society for any consideration. Georgiana should take
her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers.”
Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on
the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that
her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town. “It would be so much better,”
she said, “if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over.” I did
not ask what she meant by “all being over,” but I suppose she referred to the expected
decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no
more notice of her sister’s indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring,
lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-
book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus—
“Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to
cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make no use of life. Instead of
living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten
your feebleness on some other person’s strength: if no one can be found willing to
burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you
are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of
continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired,
you must be courted, you must be flattered—you must have music, dancing, and
society—or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will
make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it
into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of
an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include all; do each piece of business in its turn
with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has
begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment:
you have had to seek no one’s company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have
lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last I
shall offer you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect
it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer the results of your
idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I tell you this plainly; and listen: for
though I shall no more repeat what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After
my mother’s death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the
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vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each
other. You need not think that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I
shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this—if the
whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on
the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new.”
She closed her lips.
“You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,” answered
Georgiana. “Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence:
and I know your spiteful hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the
trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above
you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so
you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever.” Georgiana took out
her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable,
and assiduously industrious.
True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures
rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it.
Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by
feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the
perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint’s-day service at the new church—for
in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual
discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church
thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers.
I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there
almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent attention: the hired nurse,
being little looked after, would slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was
faithful; but she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the
hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; the
patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows: the fire was
dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her
who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window.
The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: “One lies there,”
I thought, “who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that
spirit—now struggling to quit its material tenement—flit when at length released?”
In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her dying words—
her faith—her doctrine of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in
thought to her well-remembered tones—still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her
wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her
longing to be restored to her divine Father’s bosom—when a feeble voice murmured
from the couch behind: “Who is that?”
I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went up to her.
“It is I, Aunt Reed.”
“Who—I?” was her answer. “Who are you?” looking at me with surprise and a sort of
alarm, but still not wildly. “You are quite a stranger to me—where is Bessie?”
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“She is at the lodge, aunt.”
“Aunt,” she repeated. “Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons; and yet I
know you—that face, and the eyes and forehead, are quiet familiar to me: you are like—
why, you are like Jane Eyre!”
I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity.
“Yet,” said she, “I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. I wished to see Jane
Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so
changed.” I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me
to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I
explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.
“I am very ill, I know,” she said ere long. “I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since,
and find I cannot move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die: what we
think little of in health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse
here? or is there no one in the room but you?”
I assured her we were alone.
“Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the
promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child; the other—” she
stopped. “After all, it is of no great importance, perhaps,” she murmured to herself: “and
then I may get better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.”
She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; she seemed to
experience some inward sensation—the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang.
“Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell her.—Go to my dressing-
case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there.”
I obeyed her directions. “Read the letter,” she said.
It was short, and thus conceived:—
“MADAM,—
“Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me
how she is? It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira.
Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried
and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I
may have to leave.
I am, Madam, &c., &c.,
“JOHN EYRE, Madeira.”
It was dated three years back.
“Why did I never hear of this?” I asked.
“Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to
prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane—the fury with which you once
turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in
the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought
of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could
not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of
your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me
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with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice.—Bring me some water! Oh, make
haste!”
“Dear Mrs. Reed,” said I, as I offered her the draught she required, “think no more of all
this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a
child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day.”
She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn
breath, she went on thus—
“I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be adopted by your
uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to
him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of
typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict my assertion—
expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my torment: my
last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have
been tempted to commit.”
“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with
kindness and forgiveness——”
“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this day I feel it impossible to
understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any
treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.”
“My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a
time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I
long earnestly to be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.”
I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by
leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I laid her down—for I raised her
and supported her on my arm while she drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy
hand with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing eyes shunned my
gaze.
“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you have my full and free
forgiveness: ask now for God’s, and be at peace.”
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to change her
habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-hour longer, hoping
to see some sign of amity: but she gave none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did
her mind again rally: at twelve o’clock that night she died. I was not present to close her
eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning that all
was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who
had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah
Reed’s once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its
cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A
strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain:
nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only
a grating anguish for her woes—not my loss—and a sombre tearless dismay at the
fearfulness of death in such a form.
Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she observed—
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“With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by
trouble.” And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she
turned and left the room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
