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I resisted all the way: a hing for , and a circe which greatly strengthehe bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to eain of . The fact is, I was a trifle beside self; or rather out of self, as the French would say: I was scious that a nt’s tiny had already rendered liable te penaies, and, like any other rebel se, I fe resoled, in desperation, to go all lengths.
“Hold her ar, Miss Abbot: she’s like a d cat.”
“For sha! for sha!” cried the dy’s-id. “What shog duct, Miss Eyre, to strike a youlen, your beress’s son! Your young ster.”
“Master! How is he ster? AI a serant?”
“No; you are less than a serant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think oer your wiess.”
They had got by this ti into the apartnt indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust upon a stool: iulse was to rise froit like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested instantly.
“If you don’t sit still, you st be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss Abbot, lend yarters; she would break ne directly.”
Miss Abbot turo diest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignony it inferred, took a little of the et out of .
“Don’t take theoff,” I cried; “I will not stir.”
In guarantee whereof, I attached self to seat by hands.
“Mind you don’t,” said Bessie; and when she had ascertaihat I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of ; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded ar, looking darkly and doubtfully on face, as incredulous of sanity.
“She neer did so before,” at st said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.
“But it was always in her,” was the reply. “I’e told Missis often opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with . She’s an underhand little thing: I neer saw a girl of her age with so cer.”
Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing , 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 hae to go to th;rk?;/rke poorhouse.”
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not o : ery first lles of eistencluded hints of the sa kind. This reproay dependence had bee a ague sing-song in ear: ery 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 the They will hae a great deal of ney, and you will hae is your pce to be hule, and to try to ke yourself agreeable to the”
“What we tell you is for yood,” added Bessie, in no harsh oice, “you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would hae a ho here; but if you bee passionate and rude, Missis will send you away, I asure.”
“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her: He ght strike her dead i of her tantru, and then where would she go? e, Bessie, we will leae her: I wouldn’t hae her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don’t repent, sothing bad ght be pertted to e down the ey ach you away.”
They went, shutting the door, and log it behind the
The red-roowas a square chaer, ery seldoslept in, I ght say neer, indeed, unless when a flu of isitors at Gateshead Hall re necessary to turn to at all the aodation it tained: yet it was one of the rgest and stateliest chaers in the nsion. A bed supported on ssie pilrs of hogany, hung with curtains of deep red dask, stood out like a tabernacle ire; the twe windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded ioons and falls of sir drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed waered with a cloth; the walls were a soft fawlour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old hogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and gred white, the piled-up ttresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles terpane. Scarcely less pro was an ale cushioned easy-chair he head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
This roowas chill, because it seldohad a fire; it was silent, because rete frothe nursery and kit; sole, because it was known to be so seldoehe house-id alone ca here on Saturdays, to wipe frothe rrors and the furniture a week’s quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far interals, isited it to reiew the tents of a certai drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored diers parts, her jewel-casket, and a niature of her deceased husband; and in those st words lies the secret of the red-roothe spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.
Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chaer he breathed his st; here he y in state; hence hiffin was borne by the uaker’s n; and, sihat day, a sense of dreary secration had guarded it frofrequent intrusion.
My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left rieted, was a low ottohe rble ey-piece; the bed rose before ; to right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken refles arying the gloss of its panels; to left were the ffled windows; a great looking-gss between therepeated the at jesty of the bed and roo I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared e, I got up ao see. As! yes: no jail was eer re secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-gss; fasated gnoluntarily eplored the depth it reealed. All lookelder and darker in that isionary hollow than iy: and the stratle figure there gazing at , with a white fad ar speg the gloo and glittering eyes of fear ing where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phanto, half fairy, half i, Bessie’s eening stories represented as ing out of lone, ferny dells in ors, and appearing before the eyes of beted traellers. I returo stool.
Superstition was with at that nt; but it was not yet her hour for plete ictory: blood was still war the od of the reoed se was still brag with its bitter igour; I had to stea rapid rush of retrospectie thought before I quailed to the disl present.
All John Reed’s iolent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, all his ther’s aersion, all the serants’ partiality, turned up in disturbed nd like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always aused, for eer ned? Whuld I neer please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s faour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was ;ar;/arrespected. Geiana, who had a spoiled teer, a ery acrid spite, a captious and i carriage, was uniersally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seed to gie delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase iy for eery fau. John no ohwarted, ch less puhough he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse ines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest pnts in the seratory: he called his ther “old girl,” too; sotis reiled her for her dark skin, sir to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still “her own darling.” I dared it no fau: I stroe to fulfil eery duty; and I was terd naughty and tireso, sullen and sneaking, froto noon, and fronoon to night.
My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had receied: no one had reproed John for wantonly striking ; and because I had turned against hito aert farther irrational iolence, I was loaded with general opprobriu
“Unjust!—unjust!” said reason, forced by the agonising stilus into pcious though transitory power: and Resole, equally wrought up, instigated se epedient to achiee escape froinsupportable oppression—as running away, or, if thauld not be effected, neer eating or drinking re, aing self die.
What a sternation of soul was hat dreary afternoon! How all brain was in tu, and all heart in insurre! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the ntal battle fought! uld not ahe ceaseless inward question—why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of—I will not say how ny years, I see it clearly.
I was a drd in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harny with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen assage. If they did not loe , in fact, as little did I loe the They were not bound tard with affe a thing thauld not syathise with one angst the a heterogeneous thing, opposed to thei, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of sering their i, or adding to their pleasure; a noious thing, cherishing the ger of indignation at their treatnt, of pt of their judgnt. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, eag, hands child—though equally depe and friendless—Mrs. Reed would hae endured  resence re ptly; her children would hae eained for re of thrdiality of fellow-feeling; the serants would hae been less proo ke the scapegoat of the nursery.
Daylight began to forsake the red-roo it ast four o’clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating tinuously oaircase window, and the wind howling in the groe behind the hall; I grew by degreeld as a stone, and then ce sank. My habitual od of huliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell da on the eers of deg ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I ght be so; what thought had I been but just g o;q.;/qf stario death? That certainly was a cri: and was I fit to die? Or was the au uhe cel of Gateshead Chur initing bourne? In such au I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwe on it with gathering dread. uld not reer hi but I khat he was own uher’s brother—that he had taken when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his st nts he had required a prose of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and intain as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably sidered she had kept this prose; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would pert her; but hould she really like an interloper not of her race, and ued with her, after her husband’s death, by any tie? It st hae been st irkso to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand iead of a parent to a strange child shuld not loe, and to see an ungenial alien perly intruded on her own faly group.
A singur notion dawned upon . I doubted not—neer doubted— that if Mr. Reed had been alie he would hae treated kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and oershadowed walls— oasionally als a fasated eye towards the diy gleaning rror—I began to recall what I had heard of dead n, troubled in their graes by the iotion of their st wishes, reisiting the earth to punish the perjured and aehe oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister’s child, ght quit its abode—whether in the church au or in the unknown world of the departed—and rise before in this chaer. I wiped tears and hushed sobs, fearful lest any sign of iolent grief ght waken a preternatural oifort , or elicit frothe glooso haloed face, bending oer with stray. This idea, sotory in theory, I fe would be terrible if realised: with all ght I endeaoured to stifle it—I endeaoured to be fir Shaking hair fro eyes, I lifted head and tried to look boldly round the dark roo at this nt a light glead on the wall. Was it, I asked self, a ray frothe orating so aperture in the blind? No; onlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quiered oer head. I ow jecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleafroa ntern carried by so one across the wn: but then, prepared as nd was for horror, shaken as neres were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beawas a herald of so ing ision froanother world. My heart beat thibsp; head grew hot; a sound filled ears, which I deed the rushing of wings; sothing seed near ; I pressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lo desperate effort. Steps ca running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.
“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie.
“What a dreadful went quite through !” ecid Abbot.
“Take out! Let go into the nursery!” was cry.
“What for? Are you hurt? Hae you seen sothing?” again dended Bessie.
“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would e.” I had now got hold of Bessie’s hand, and she did not snatch it fro.
“She has scread out on purpose,” decred Abbot, in so disgust. “And what a screa If s;bdo;/bdohe had been i pain one would hae ecused it, but she only wa us all here: I know her naughty tricks.”
“What is all this?” dended another oice peretorily; and Mrs. Reed ca along thrridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling storly. “Abbot and Bessie, I beliee I gae orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-rootill I ca to her self.”
“Miss Jane scread so loud, ’a” pleaded Bessie.
“Let her go,” was the only answer. “Loose Bessie’s hand, child: you ot sueed iing out by these ans, be assured. I abhor artifice, particurly in children; it is duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on dition of perfect subssion and stillhat I shall liberate you then.”
“O aunt! hae pity! Fie ! I ot e—let be punished so other way! I shall be killed if—”
“Silehis iolence is all st repulsie:” and so, no doubt, she fe it. I cious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on as a pound of irulent passions, an spirit, and dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot haireated, Mrs. Reed, iatient of now frantiguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust bad locked in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unsciousness closed the se.
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