I resisted
all the way: a new thing for
me, and a circumstance which
greatly strengthened the bad
opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot
were disposed to entertain of
me. The fact is, I was a trifle
beside myself; or rather OUT
of myself, as the French would
say: I was conscious that a moment's
mutiny had already rendered me
liable to strange penalties,
and, like any other rebel slave,
I felt resolved, in my desperation,
to go all lengths.
"Hold
her arms, Miss
Abbot: she's
like a mad
cat."
"For shame! for shame!" cried
the lady's-maid. "What shocking
conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike
a young gentleman, your benefactress's
son! Your young master."
"Master!
How is he my
master? Am
I a servant?"
"No;
you are less
than a servant,
for you do nothing for your keep.
There, sit down, and think over
your wickedness."
They had got me by this time
into the apartment indicated
by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust
me upon a stool: my impulse was
to rise from it like a spring;
their two pair of hands arrested
me instantly.
"If you don't sit still, you
must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss
Abbot, lend me your garters;
she would break mine directly."
Miss Abbot turned to divest
a stout leg of the necessary
ligature. This preparation for
bonds, and the additional ignominy
it inferred, took a little of
the excitement out of me.
"Don't take them off," I cried; "I
will not stir."
In guarantee whereof, I attached
myself to my seat by my hands.
"Mind you don't," said
Bessie; and
when she had
ascertained
that I was really subsiding,
she loosened her hold of me;
then she and Miss Abbot stood
with folded arms, looking darkly
and doubtfully on my face, as
incredulous of my sanity.
"She never did so before," at
last said Bessie, turning to
the Abigail.
"But it was always in her," was
the reply. "I've told Missis
often my opinion about the child,
and Missis agreed with me. She's
an underhand little thing: I
never saw a girl of her age with
so much cover."
Bessie
answered not;
but ere long,
addressing
me, she said--"You
ought to be aware, Miss, that
you are under obligations to
Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if
she were to turn you off, you
would have to go to the poorhouse."
I had nothing to say to these
words: they were not new to me:
my very first recollections of
existence included hints of the
same kind. This reproach of my
dependence had become a vague
sing-song in my ear: very painful
and crushing, but only half intelligible.
Miss Abbot joined in -
"And
you ought not
to think yourself
on an equality
with
the Misses Reed and Master Reed,
because Missis kindly allows
you to be brought up with them.
They will have a great deal of
money, and you will have none:
it is your place to be humble,
and to try to make yourself agreeable
to them."
"What we tell you is for your
good," added Bessie, in no harsh
voice, "you should try to be
useful and pleasant, then, perhaps,
you would have a home here; but
if you become passionate and
rude, Missis will send you away,
I am sure."
"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God
will punish her: He might strike
her dead in the midst of her
tantrums, and then where would
she go? Come, Bessie, we will
leave her: I wouldn't have her
heart for anything. Say your
prayers, Miss Eyre, when you
are by yourself; for if you don't
repent, something bad might be
permitted to come down the chimney
and fetch you away."
They went, shutting the door,
and locking it behind them.
The red-room was a square chamber,
very seldom slept in, I might
say never, indeed, unless when
a chance influx of visitors at
Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary
to turn to account all the accommodation
it contained: yet it was one
of the largest and stateliest
chambers in the mansion. A bed
supported on massive pillars
of mahogany, hung with curtains
of deep red damask, stood out
like a tabernacle in the centre;
the two large windows, with their
blinds always drawn down, were
half shrouded in festoons and
falls of similar drapery; the
carpet was red; the table at
the foot of the bed was covered
with a crimson cloth; the walls
were a soft fawn colour with
a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe,
the toilet-table, the chairs
were of darkly polished old mahogany.
Out of these deep surrounding
shades rose high, and glared
white, the piled-up mattresses
and pillows of the bed, spread
with a snowy Marseilles counterpane.
Scarcely less prominent was an
ample cushioned easy-chair near
the head of the bed, also white,
with a footstool before it; and
looking, as I thought, like a
pale throne.
This room was chill, because
it seldom had a fire; it was
silent, because remote from the
nursery and kitchen; solemn,
because it was known to be so
seldom entered. The house-maid
alone came here on Saturdays,
to wipe from the mirrors and
the furniture a week's quiet
dust: and Mrs. Reed herself,
at far intervals, visited it
to review the contents of a certain
secret drawer in the wardrobe,
where were stored divers parchments,
her jewel-casket, and a miniature
of her deceased husband; and
in those last words lies the
secret of the red-room--the spell
which kept it so lonely in spite
of its grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine
years: it was in this chamber
he breathed his last; here he
lay in state; hence his coffin
was borne by the undertaker's
men; and, since that day, a sense
of dreary consecration had guarded
it from frequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and
the bitter Miss Abbot had left
me riveted, was a low ottoman
near the marble chimney-piece;
the bed rose before me; to my
right hand there was the high,
dark wardrobe, with subdued,
broken reflections varying the
gloss of its panels; to my left
were the muffled windows; a great
looking-glass between them repeated
the vacant majesty of the bed
and room. I was not quite sure
whether they had locked the door;
and when I dared move, I got
up and went to see. Alas! yes:
no jail was ever more secure.
Returning, I had to cross before
the looking-glass; my fascinated
glance involuntarily explored
the depth it revealed. All looked
colder and darker in that visionary
hollow than in reality: and the
strange little figure there gazing
at me, with a white face and
arms specking the gloom, and
glittering eyes of fear moving
where all else was still, had
the effect of a real spirit:
I thought it like one of the
tiny phantoms, half fairy, half
imp, Bessie's evening stories
represented as coming out of
lone, ferny dells in moors, and
appearing before the eyes of
belated travellers. I returned
to my stool.
Superstition was with me at
that moment; but it was not yet
her hour for complete victory:
my blood was still warm; the
mood of the revolted slave was
still bracing me with its bitter
vigour; I had to stem a rapid
rush of retrospective thought
before I quailed to the dismal
present.
All
John Reed's
violent tyrannies,
all his sisters' proud indifference,
all his mother's aversion, all
the servants' partiality, turned
up in my disturbed mind like
a dark deposit in a turbid well.
Why was I always suffering, always
browbeaten, always accused, for
ever condemned? Why could I never
please? Why was it useless to
try to win any one's favour?
Eliza, who was headstrong and
selfish, was respected. Georgiana,
who had a spoiled temper, a very
acrid spite, a captious and insolent
carriage, was universally indulged.
Her beauty, her pink cheeks and
golden curls, seemed to give
delight to all who looked at
her, and to purchase indemnity
for every fault. John no one
thwarted, much less punished;
though he twisted the necks of
the pigeons, killed the little
pea-chicks, set the dogs at the
sheep, stripped the hothouse
vines of their fruit, and broke
the buds off the choicest plants
in the conservatory: he called
his mother "old girl," too; sometimes
reviled her for her dark skin,
similar to his own; bluntly disregarded
her wishes; not unfrequently
tore and spoiled her silk attire;
and he was still "her own darling." I
dared commit no fault: I strove
to fulfil every duty; and I was
termed naughty and tiresome,
sullen and sneaking, from morning
to noon, and from noon to night.
My head still ached and bled
with the blow and fall I had
received: no one had reproved
John for wantonly striking me;
and because I had turned against
him to avert farther irrational
violence, I was loaded with general
opprobrium.
"Unjust!--unjust!" said
my reason,
forced by the
agonising
stimulus into precocious though
transitory power: and Resolve,
equally wrought up, instigated
some strange expedient to achieve
escape from insupportable oppression--as
running away, or, if that could
not be effected, never eating
or drinking more, and letting
myself die.
What a consternation of soul
was mine that dreary afternoon!
How all my brain was in tumult,
and all my heart in insurrection!
Yet in what darkness, what dense
ignorance, was the mental battle
fought! I could not answer the
ceaseless inward question--WHY
I thus suffered; now, at the
distance of--I will not say how
many years, I see it clearly.
I was a discord in Gateshead
Hall: I was like nobody there;
I had nothing in harmony with
Mrs. Reed or her children, or
her chosen vassalage. If they
did not love me, in fact, as
little did I love them. They
were not bound to regard with
affection a thing that could
not sympathise with one amongst
them; a heterogeneous thing,
opposed to them in temperament,
in capacity, in propensities;
a useless thing, incapable of
serving their interest, or adding
to their pleasure; a noxious
thing, cherishing the germs of
indignation at their treatment,
of contempt of their judgment.
I know that had I been a sanguine,
brilliant, careless, exacting,
handsome, romping child--though
equally dependent and friendless--Mrs.
Reed would have endured my presence
more complacently; her children
would have entertained for me
more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling;
the servants would have been
less prone to make me the scapegoat
of the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the
red-room; it was past four o'clock,
and the beclouded afternoon was
tending to drear twilight. I
heard the rain still beating
continuously on the staircase
window, and the wind howling
in the grove behind the hall;
I grew by degrees cold as a stone,
and then my courage sank. My
habitual mood of humiliation,
self-doubt, forlorn depression,
fell damp on the embers of my
decaying ire. All said I was
wicked, and perhaps I might be
so; what thought had I been but
just conceiving of starving myself
to death? That certainly was
a crime: and was I fit to die?
Or was the vault under the chancel
of Gateshead Church an inviting
bourne? In such vault I had been
told did Mr. Reed lie buried;
and led by this thought to recall
his idea, I dwelt on it with
gathering dread. I could not
remember him; but I knew that
he was my own uncle--my mother's
brother--that he had taken me
when a parentless infant to his
house; and that in his last moments
he had required a promise of
Mrs. Reed that she would rear
and maintain me as one of her
own children. Mrs. Reed probably
considered she had kept this
promise; and so she had, I dare
say, as well as her nature would
permit her; but how could she
really like an interloper not
of her race, and unconnected
with her, after her husband's
death, by any tie? It must have
been most irksome to find herself
bound by a hard-wrung pledge
to stand in the stead of a parent
to a strange child she could
not love, and to see an uncongenial
alien permanently intruded on
her own family group.
A singular notion dawned upon
me. I doubted not--never doubted--
that if Mr. Reed had been alive
he would have treated me kindly;
and now, as I sat looking at
the white bed and overshadowed
walls-- occasionally also turning
a fascinated eye towards the
dimly gleaning mirror--I began
to recall what I had heard of
dead men, troubled in their graves
by the violation of their last
wishes, revisiting the earth
to punish the perjured and avenge
the oppressed; and I thought
Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by
the wrongs of his sister's child,
might quit its abode--whether
in the church vault or in the
unknown world of the departed--and
rise before me in this chamber.
I wiped my tears and hushed my
sobs, fearful lest any sign of
violent grief might waken a preternatural
voice to comfort me, or elicit
from the gloom some haloed face,
bending over me with strange
pity. This idea, consolatory
in theory, I felt would be terrible
if realised: with all my might
I endeavoured to stifle it- -I
endeavoured to be firm. Shaking
my hair from my eyes, I lifted
my head and tried to look boldly
round the dark room; at this
moment a light gleamed on the
wall. Was it, I asked myself,
a ray from the moon penetrating
some aperture in the blind? No;
moonlight was still, and this
stirred; while I gazed, it glided
up to the ceiling and quivered
over my head. I can now conjecture
readily that this streak of light
was, in all likelihood, a gleam
from a lantern carried by some
one across the lawn: but then,
prepared as my mind was for horror,
shaken as my nerves were by agitation,
I thought the swift darting beam
was a herald of some coming vision
from another world. My heart
beat thick, my head grew hot;
a sound filled my ears, which
I deemed the rushing of wings;
something seemed near me; I was
oppressed, suffocated: endurance
broke down; I rushed to the door
and shook the lock in desperate
effort. Steps came running along
the outer passage; the key turned,
Bessie and Abbot entered.
"Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said
Bessie.
"What a dreadful noise! it
went quite through me!" exclaimed
Abbot.
"Take me out! Let me go into
the nursery!" was my cry.
"What for? Are you hurt? Have
you seen something?" again demanded
Bessie.
"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought
a ghost would come." I had now
got hold of Bessie's hand, and
she did not snatch it from me.
"She has screamed out on purpose," declared
Abbot, in some disgust. "And
what a scream! If she had been
in great pain one would have
excused it, but she only wanted
to bring us all here: I know
her naughty tricks."
"What is all this?" demanded
another voice peremptorily; and
Mrs. Reed came along the corridor,
her cap flying wide, her gown
rustling stormily. "Abbot and
Bessie, I believe I gave orders
that Jane Eyre should be left
in the red-room till I came to
her myself."
"Miss Jane screamed so loud,
ma'am," pleaded Bessie.
"Let her go," was the only
answer. "Loose Bessie's hand,
child: you cannot succeed in
getting out by these means, be
assured. I abhor artifice, particularly
in children; it is my duty to
show you that tricks will not
answer: you will now stay here
an hour longer, and it is only
on condition of perfect submission
and stillness that I shall liberate
you then."
"O
aunt! have
pity! Forgive
me! I cannot endure it--let me
be punished some other way! I
shall be killed if--"
"Silence! This violence is
all most repulsive:" and so,
no doubt, she felt it. I was
a precocious actress in her eyes;
she sincerely looked on me as
a compound of virulent passions,
mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot having retreated,
Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now
frantic anguish and wild sobs,
abruptly thrust me back and locked
me in, without farther parley.
I heard her sweeping away; and
soon after she was gone, I suppose
I had a species of fit: unconsciousness
closed the scene.
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