21 Cont. Jane Eyre - Read And Abridged By Stephanie Poppins

This is S.

D.

Hudson Magic Jane Eyre Chapter 21 Continued 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'd come!

' exclaimed Mrs.

Leaven as I entered.

"'Yes,

Bessie,

' said I,

After I had kissed her,

"'and I trust I'm 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'll finally recover.

' "'Has she mentioned me lately?

' "'She was talking of you only this morning and wishing you'd come,

But she's 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'll go up with you?

' Robert here entered,

And Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him.

Afterward 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 back fast 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 wiles 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,

Quiet 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-palloyed 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 she treated me kindly and I was content.

Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house,

And to these details Bessie listened with interest.

They were precisely of the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon gone.

Bessie restored to me my bonnet,

Etc.

,

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,

To seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood,

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 Berwick's British Birds occupying their old place on the third and Gulliver's Travels and the Arabian Nights.

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-stuffed dress,

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.

The other was a 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 ring-littered yellow hair.

The hue of her dress was black,

Too,

But its fashion was so different from her sister's,

So much more flowing in becoming,

It looked as stylish as the others looked puritanical.

In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother,

And only one.

The thin-pallid elder daughter had her parent's eye.

The blooming and luxuriant younger girl had the contour of her jaw and chin,

Perhaps a little softened,

But still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance.

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.

Then she sat down again,

Fixed her eyes on the fire,

And seemed to forget me.

Georgiana added to her,

How do you do?

Several commonplaces about my journey,

The weather and so on,

Uttered in a rather drooling tone,

And accompanied by a sundry side-glance that measured me from head to foot.

Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know they think you are a quiz without actually saying the words.

A certain superciliousness of look,

Coolness of manner,

Nonchalance of tone,

Express fully their sentiments on the point,

Without committing themselves 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 see how easy I felt,

Under the total neglect of one,

And semi-sarcastic attentions of the other.

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,

Mamma,

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 said,

And I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary.

Remar dislikes being disturbed in an evening,

Remarked Eliza.

I soon rose,

Quietly took off my bonnet and gloves,

And uninvited said I would just step out to Bessie.

I went,

And having found Bessie and dispatched her on my errand,

I proceeded to take further measures.

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 daughter's pride or folly,

I must put it on one side and make myself independent of it.

So I addressed the housekeeper,

Asked her to show me a room,

And told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two.

Then I had my trunk conveyed to my chamber and followed it thither myself.

"'Mrs.

Is awake,

' said Bessie.

"'I've told her you're here.

Come and let's see if she'll know you.

'" I did not need to be guided to the well-known room,

To which I had so often been summoned for chastisement.

I hastened before Bessie,

And softly opened the door.

A shaded light stood on the table,

For it was now getting dark.

And there was the great four-poster bed,

With amber hangings as of old.

There the toilet table,

There 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,

Half expecting to see the slim outline of a once-dreaded switch which used to lurk there.

I approached the bed,

Opened the curtains,

And leant over the high-piled pillows.

Well,

I did remember Mrs.

Reed's face,

And I eagerly sought the familiar image.

It is a happy thing that time quells the longingness of vengeance,

And hushes the promptings of rage and aversion.

I had left this woman in bitterness and hate,

And I came back to her now,

With no other emotion than a sort of wrath for her great suffering,

And a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries,

To be reconciled.

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 it had lowered on me menace and hate,

And how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived.

And yet I stooped down and kissed her,

And she looked at me.

"'Is this Jane Eyre?

' said she.

"'Yes,

Aunt Reed.

How are you,

Dear aunt?

' I had once vowed I would never call her aunt again.

I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now,

Where 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 often softened,

Nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated.

Mrs.

Reed stole 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 her opinion of me was unchanged and unchangeable.

I knew by her stony eye 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,

And I ordered them back to their source.

I brought a chair to the bedhead,

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.

" "'Of course.

You've seen my daughters?

' "'Yes.

' "'Well,

Then you may tell them I wish you to stay,

Till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind.

Tonight is too late,

And I have 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 more trouble with that child than anyone would believe,

Such a burden to be left on my hands,

And so much annoyance,

As she calls me,

Daily,

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.

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,

And many of the pupils died.

She,

However,

Did not die.

But I said she did.

I wish she had died.

"'A strange wish,

Mrs.

Reed,

' said I.

"'Why do you hate her so?

' I had a dislike to her mother always.

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.

I tried to make my children friendly to the little beggar,

But the darlings could not bear it,

And he was angry with them when they showed their dislike.

In his last illness he brought it continually to his bedside,

But an hour before he died he bound me by a vow to keep the creature,

Or I would soon have been charged with a poor brat out of a workhouse.

But he was weak,

Naturally weak.

John does not at all resemble his father,

And I am quite glad of it.

John is like me and my brothers.

He is quite a Gibson.

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 half 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.

He 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 now.

I think I'd better leave,

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'll be calmer.

I rose to leave.

Stop!

Exclaimed Mrs.

Reed.

There's another thing I wish to say.

He threatens me.

He threatens me with his own death or mine,

And I dream sometimes I see him laid out with a great wound in his throat.

What is to be done?

Bessie now endeavoured to persuade Mrs.

Reed to take a sedative draft,

And she succeeded with difficulty.

Soon after this,

Mrs.

Reed grew more composed and sank into a dozing state,

Whereupon I left her.