Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 21.

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 fardistant, 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
babyphantom 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."
"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 things 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 tomorrow 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 billiardroom 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 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 skyblue 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 halfruined 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." "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 tomorrow 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, Adele 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. Adele, 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." "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 Adele 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 tomorrow, then?" "Yes, sir; early." "Shall you come down
to the drawingroom after dinner?" "No, sir, I must prepare for the
journey." "Then you and I must bid goodbye 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?" "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 goodwill 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 dinnerbell 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 fireirons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear.
Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her lastborn, 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 teatray
with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a teacake,
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 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 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 breakfastroom 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 straightskirted, black, stuff dress,
a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and
the nunlike 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 fairylike girl of eleven. This was
a fullblown, 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 sideglances 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,
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 semisarcastic 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 tonight."
"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 tonight. 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 today, 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 wellknown 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 fourpost bed
with amber hangings as of old; there the toilettable, 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 implike and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I
approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant over the
highpiled 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 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 bedhead: 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: tonight 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!" "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? Twothirds 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 evershifting kaleidoscope of
imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon,
and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and waterflags, and
a naiad's head, crowned with lotusflowers, rising out of them; an
elf sitting in a hedgesparrow's nest, under a wreath of hawthornbloom.

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. Stronglymarked horizontal eyebrows must
be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a welldefined
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 watercolour 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
sickroom, 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 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 kitchengarden; 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 longcherished 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 accountbook 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 illtreated, 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 insuperable
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 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'sday 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 weekdays
as there were prayers.

I thought 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 sickroom 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, rearranged 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?" "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 dressingcase, 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, etc., etc., "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 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 icecold 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:

"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.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 22.>