Advanced_Jane Eyre_2

CHAPTER II

I resisted all the way: a new thingfor me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessieand Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a triflebeside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French wouldsay: I was conscious that a moment's mutiny had already rendered me liable tostrange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in mydesperation, to go all lengths.

"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot:she's like a mad cat."

"For shame! for shame!"cried the lady's-maid. "What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike ayoung gentleman, your benefactress's son! Your young master."

"Master! How is he my master?Am I a servant?"

"No; you are less than aservant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over yourwickedness."

They had got me by this time intothe apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: myimpulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested meinstantly.

"If you don't sit still, youmust be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters;she would break mine directly."

Miss Abbot turned to divest a stoutleg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additionalignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me.

"Don't take them off," Icried; "I will not stir."

In guarantee whereof, I attachedmyself to my seat by my hands.

"Mind you don't," saidBessie; and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding, she loosenedher hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darklyand doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity.

"She never did sobefore," at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.

"But it was always inher," was the reply. "I've told Missis often my opinion about thechild, and Missis agreed with me. She's an underhand little thing: I never sawa girl of her age with so much cover."

Bessie answered not; but ere long,addressing me, she said—"You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are underobligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you wouldhave to go to the poorhouse."

I had nothing to say to thesewords: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existenceincluded hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become avague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only halfintelligible. Miss Abbot joined in—

"And you ought not to thinkyourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missiskindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal ofmoney, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try tomake yourself agreeable to them."

"What we tell you is for yourgood," added Bessie, in no harsh voice, "you should try to be usefuland pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you becomepassionate and rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure."

"Besides," said MissAbbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of hertantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: Iwouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you areby yourself; for if you don't repent, something bad might be permitted to comedown the chimney and fetch you away."

They went, shutting the door, andlocking it behind them.

The red-room was a square chamber,very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx ofvisitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all theaccommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliestchambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hungwith curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; thetwo large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded infestoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at thefoot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawncolour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairswere of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rosehigh, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spreadwith a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an amplecushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstoolbefore it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.

This room was chill, because itseldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen;solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone camehere on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quietdust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contentsof a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored diversparchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and inthose last words lies the secret of the red-room—the spell which kept it solonely in spite of its grandeur.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years:it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence hiscoffin was borne by the undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense ofdreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.

My seat, to which Bessie and thebitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marblechimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high,dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels;to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between themrepeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whetherthey had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see.Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before thelooking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth itrevealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than inreality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white faceand arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all elsewas still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tinyphantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories represented as comingout of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belatedtravellers. I returned to my stool.

Superstition was with me at thatmoment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was stillwarm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bittervigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed tothe dismal present.

All John Reed's violent tyrannies,all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all theservants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in aturbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win anyone's favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana,who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage,was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemedto give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for everyfault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks ofthe pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, strippedthe hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plantsin the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimesreviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded herwishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still"her own darling." I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil everyduty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morningto noon, and from noon to night.

My head still ached and bled withthe blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonlystriking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrationalviolence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.

"Unjust!—unjust!" said myreason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitorypower: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient toachieve escape from insupportable oppression—as running away, or, if that couldnot be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.

What a consternation of soul wasmine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart ininsurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battlefought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question—why I thussuffered; now, at the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see itclearly.

I was a discord in Gateshead Hall:I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or herchildren, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as littledid I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing thatcould not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed tothem in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapableof serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing,cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of theirjudgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting,handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed wouldhave endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertainedfor me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have beenless prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.

Daylight began to forsake thered-room; it was past four o'clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending todrear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircasewindow, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degreescold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation,self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. Allsaid I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but justconceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was Ifit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an invitingbourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by thisthought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could notremember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle—my mother's brother—that hehad taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his lastmoments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintainme as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept thispromise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her;but how could she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnectedwith her, after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most irksometo find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parentto a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alienpermanently intruded on her own family group.

A singular notion dawned upon me. Idoubted not—never doubted—that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treatedme kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowedwalls—occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaningmirror—I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their gravesby the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish theperjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed bythe wrongs of his sister's child, might quit its abode—whether in the churchvault or in the unknown world of the departed—and rise before me in thischamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violentgrief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloomsome haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory intheory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavouredto stifle it—I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I liftedmy head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a lightgleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetratingsome aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while Igazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can nowconjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleamfrom a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as mymind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swiftdarting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heartbeat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed therushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated:endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperateeffort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie andAbbot entered.

"Miss Eyre, are you ill?"said Bessie.

"What a dreadful noise! itwent quite through me!" exclaimed Abbot.

"Take me out! Let me go intothe nursery!" was my cry.

"What for? Are you hurt? Haveyou seen something?" again demanded Bessie.

"Oh! I saw a light, and Ithought a ghost would come." I had now got hold of Bessie's hand, and shedid not snatch it from me.

"She has screamed out onpurpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust. "And what a scream! If shehad been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bringus all here: I know her naughty tricks."

"What is all this?"demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, hercap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily. "Abbot and Bessie, I believeI gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to hermyself."

"Miss Jane screamed so loud,ma'am," pleaded Bessie.

"Let her go," was theonly answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you cannot succeed in gettingout by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; itis my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here anhour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillnessthat I shall liberate you then."

"O aunt! have pity! Forgiveme! I cannot endure it—let me be punished some other way! I shall be killedif—"

"Silence! This violence is allmost repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious actressin her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions,mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity.

Bessie and Abbot having retreated,Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrustme back and locked me in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away;and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousnessclosed the scene.