Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Delux Edition Chapter 4.

From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported
conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to
suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,
I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days
and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but
no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded.

Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed
me: since my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation
than ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small
closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals
alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were
constantly in the drawing room.

Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school:
still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure
me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever,
when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion.

Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke
to me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek
whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I
instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep
ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he
thought it better to desist, and ran from me tittering execrations,
and vowing I had burst his nose.

I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow
as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or
my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up
my advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I
heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how "that
nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped
rather harshly.

"Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her;
she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or
your sisters should associate with her." Here, leaning over the
banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating
on my words "They are not fit to associate with me."

Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange
and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me
like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge
of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place,
or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.

"What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?" was my
scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed
as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their
utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control.

"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed
grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand
from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether
I were child or fiend. I was now in for it.

"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and
so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long,
and how you wish me dead."

Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly,
she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie
supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she
proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child
ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed
only bad feelings surging in my breast.

November, December, and half of January passed away. christmas and the
New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer;
presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given.

From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of
the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza
and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing room,
dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair
elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound
of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro
of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as
refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the
drawing room door opened and closed.

When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead
to the solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I
was not miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into
company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie
had but been kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a
treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them
under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and
gentlemen.

But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used
to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and
housekeeper's room, generally bearing the candle along with
her. I then sat with my doll on my knee till the fire got low,
glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse
than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers
sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and
strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold
and darkness in my crib.

To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love
something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects
of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing
a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles
me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this
little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I
could not sleep unless it was folded in my night gown; and when it
lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it
to be happy likewise.

Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company,
and listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs: sometimes
she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her
scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of suppera
bun or a cheese cakethen she would sit on the bed while I ate
it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me,
and twice she kissed me, and said, "Good night, Miss Jane."

When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being
in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so
pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me
unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee must,
I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was
smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at
least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales.

She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and person
are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black
hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion;
but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas
of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to
any one else at Gateshead Hall.

It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning:
Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been
summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm
garden coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she
was fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and
hoarding up the money she thus obtained.

She had a turn for traffic, and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the
vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener
about flower roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having orders from
Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished
to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made
a handsome profit thereby.

As to her money, she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a
rag or an old curl paper; but some of these hoards having been
discovered by the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her
valued treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate
of interestfifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every
quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy.

Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and
interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers,
of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was
making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it
arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me
as a sort of under nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, etc.).

Having spread the quilt and folded my night dress, I went
to the window seat to put in order some picture books and doll's
house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana
to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the
fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings;
and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the
frost flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing
a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds,
where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.

From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage
road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver white foliage
veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown
open and a carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive
with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever
brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of
the house, the door bell rang loudly, the new comer was admitted.

All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier
attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and
chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry tree nailed against
the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread
and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll,
I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window
sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.

"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have
you washed your hands and face this morning?" I gave another tug
before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread:
the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill,
some on the cherry tree bough, then, closing the window, I
replied, "No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting."

"Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You
look quite red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were
you opening the window for?"

I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great
a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand,
inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands
with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a
bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to
the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in
the breakfast room.

I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if
Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed
the nursery door upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three
months, I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted
so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing rooms
were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude.

I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast room
door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable
little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of
me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go
forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the
vehement ringing of the breakfast room bell decided me; I MUST enter.

"Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned
the stiff door handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my
efforts. "What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?
a man or a woman?" The handle turned, the door unclosed, and
passing through and curtseying low, I looked up at a black pillar!
Such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow,
sable clad shape standing erect on the rug: the grim face at the top
was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital.



Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a
signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the
stony stranger with the words: "This is the little girl respecting
whom I applied to you."


HE, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood,
and having examined me with the two inquisitive looking grey eyes
which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in
a bass voice, "Her size is small: what is her age?" "Ten years."

"So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny
for some minutes. Presently he addressed me "Your name, little girl?"
"Jane Eyre, sir." In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me
a tall gentleman; but then I was very little; his features were large,
and they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.
"Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?"


Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world
held a contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me
by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less
said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst." "Sorry indeed
to hear it! She and I must have some talk;" and bending from the
perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm chair opposite
Mrs. Reed's. "Come here," he said.

I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him.
What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! What
a great nose! And what a mouth! And what large prominent teeth!
"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a
naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"


"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer. "And what is
hell? Can you tell me that?" "A pit full of fire." "And should you like
to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?" "No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?" I deliberated a moment; my answer, when
it did come, was objectionable:"I must keep in good health, and not die."

"How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die
daily. I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,
a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared
the same could not be said of you were you to be called hence."



Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes
down on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing
myself far enough away. "I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that
you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your
excellent benefactress." "Benefactress! Said I inwardly: "they all call
Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing."


"Do you say your prayers night and morning?" continued my interrogator.
"Yes, sir." "Do you read your bible?" "Sometimes." "With pleasure?
Are you fond of it?" "I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel,
and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings
and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah." "And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"

"No, sir." "No? Oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows
six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a
gingerbread nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! The verse
of a Psalm! Angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little angel here
below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety."

"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked. "That proves you have a wicked
heart; and you must pray to god to change it: to give you a new and
clean one: to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."



I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which
that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs.
Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to
carry on the conversation herself.


"Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I
wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite
the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her
into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and
teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above
all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit. I
mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to
impose on Mr. Brocklehurst."


Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was
her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence;
however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please
her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences
as the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut
me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating
hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to
enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that
she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw
myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an artful,
noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?

"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and
hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish.
"Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst,
"It is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in
the lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be
watched, Mrs. Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."


"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,"
continued my benefactress; "to be made useful, to be kept humble:
as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them
always at Lowood."


"Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr.
Brocklehurst. "Humility is a christian grace, and one peculiarly
appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that
especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them.
I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of
pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success.

My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit
the school, and on her return she exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa,
how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair
combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little
holland pockets outside their frocks they are almost like poor
people's children! and,' said she, 'they looked at my dress and
mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before."

"This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs.
Reed; "had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found
a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency,
my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things."


"Consistency, madam, is the first of christian duties; and it has
been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment
of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations,
hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house
and its inhabitants."


"Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received
as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her
position and prospects?" "Madam, you may: she shall be placed in
that nursery of chosen plants, and I trust she will show herself
grateful for the inestimable privilege of her election."


"I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for,
I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility
that was becoming too irksome." "No doubt, no doubt, madam;
and now I wish you good morning. I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall
in the course of a week or two: my good friend, the Archdeacon,
will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall send Miss Temple
notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there will he no
difficulty about receiving her. Good bye." "Good bye, Mr.
Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst,
and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst."

"I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's
Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An
account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G, a naughty child
addicted to falsehood and deceit." With these words Mr. Brocklehurst
put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn in a cover, and having rung
for his carriage, he departed. Mrs. Reed and I were left alone:
some minutes passed in silence; she was sewing, I was watching her.

Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty;
she was a woman of robust frame, square shouldered and strong
limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat
large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her
brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose
sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid
of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her
constitution was sound as a bell illness never came near her; she was
an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly
under her control; her children only at times defied her authority and
laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port
calculated to set off handsome attire.


Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm chair, I examined
her figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract
containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my
attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What
had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr.
Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw,
and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard
it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.



Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers
at the same time suspended their nimble movements. "Go out of the room;
return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or something else must
have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed
irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I came back again; I walked
to the window, across the room, then close up to her.

SPEAK I must: I had been trodden on severely, and MUST turn: but
how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist?
I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence
"I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare
I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world
except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give
to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."



Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice
continued to dwell freezingly on mine. "What more have you
to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might
address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily
used to a child.


That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking
from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued,
"I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again
as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if
any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the
very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with
miserable cruelty." "How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"



"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the TRUTH. You
think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love
or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall
remember how you thrust me back roughly and violently thrust
me back into the red room, and locked me up there, to my dying
day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating
with distress, 'Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that
punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me
knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me
questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but
you are bad, hard hearted. YOU are deceitful!"

Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult,
with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It
seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled
out into unhoped for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment:
Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee;
she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even
twisting her face as if she would cry.

"Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why
do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?"
"No, Mrs. Reed." "Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you,
I desire to be your friend." "Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst
I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at
Lowood know what you are, and what you have done."


"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for
their faults." "Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.
"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to
the nursery there's a dear and lie down a little." "I am not your dear; I
cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."



"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed sotto
voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.
I was left there alone winner of the field. It was the hardest battle
I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the
rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's
solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure
subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child
cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious
feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing
afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge
of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet
emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same
ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have
represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half an hour's
silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct,
and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.



Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic
wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after flavour,
metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but
I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was
the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re exciting
every turbulent impulse of my nature.


I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce
speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than
that of sombre indignation. I took a book some Arabian tales;
I sat down and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of
the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page
I had usually found fascinating. I opened the glass door in the
breakfast room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost
reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered
my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk
in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I
found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir cones, the
congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in
heaps, and now stiffened together.

I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were
feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey
day; a most opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt
it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea
without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to
myself over and over again, "What shall I do? what shall I do?"


All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane! where are you?
Come to lunch!" It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light
step came tripping down the path. "You naughty little thing!" she said.
"Why don't you come when you are called?"

Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been
brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat
cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed,
I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory anger;
and I WAS disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just
put my two arms round her and said, "Come, Bessie! Don't scold."


The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated
to indulge in: somehow it pleased her. "You are a strange child, Miss
Jane," she said, as she looked down at me; "a little roving, solitary
thing: and you are going to school, I suppose?" I nodded.



"And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?" "What does Bessie care
for me? She is always scolding me." "Because you're such a queer,
frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder." "What! To get more
knocks?" "Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that's certain.
My mother said, when she came to see me last week, that she would
not like a little one of her own to be in your place. Now, come in,
and I've some good news for you." "I don't think you have, Bessie."


"Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me!
Well, but Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going
out to tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll
ask cook to bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to
look over your drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis
intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose
what toys you like to take with you."

"Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go."
"Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be
afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply;
it's so provoking." "I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again,


Bessie, because I have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set
of people to dread." "If you dread them they'll dislike you." "As you do,
Bessie?" "I don't dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all
the others." "You don't show it." "You little sharp thing! You've got quite
a new way of talking. What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"


"Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides" I was going to
say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed,
but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on
that head. "And so you're glad to leave me?" "Not at all, Bessie;
indeed, just now I'm rather sorry." "Just now! And rather! How
coolly my little lady says it! I dare say now if I were to ask you
for a kiss you wouldn't give it me: you'd say you'd RATHER not."


"I'll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down." Bessie stooped;
we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite
comforted. That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the
evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang
me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of
sunshine.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Deluxe Edition Chapter 5.>