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Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.  All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference, all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.  Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned?  Why could I never please?  Why was it useless to try to win any one'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, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault.  John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling."  I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.  My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium.  "Unjust!--unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.  What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon!  How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection!  Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought!  I could not answer the ceaseless inward question--_why_ I thus suffered; now, at the distance of--I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.  I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage.  If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them.  They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment.  I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.

Another new drug

"Then she ought to look more cheerful.  Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?"  "Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."  "Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?"  "No, sir."  "Oh!  I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage," interposed Bessie.  "Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness."  I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage.  I cry because I am miserable."  "Oh fie, Miss!" said Bessie.  The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled.  I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face.  Having considered me at leisure, he said--  "What made you ill yesterday?"  "She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.  "Fall! why, that is like a baby again!  Can't she manage to walk at her age?  She must be eight or nine years old."  "I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride; "but that did not make me ill," I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.  As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants' dinner; he knew what it was.  "That's for you, nurse," said he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."  Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.  "The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.  "I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark."

Another new therapy!

What was the matter?  I had heard no order given: I was puzzled.  Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and encountered the personage who had received me last night.  She stood at the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely.  Miss Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud--  "Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!"  While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly up the room.  I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her girdle.  Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple--Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church.  The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls.  The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve.  The superintendent rose--  "I have a word to address to the pupils," said she.  The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sank at her voice.  She went on--  "You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be hungry:--I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served to all."  The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise.  "It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room.

Belonging

The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the high delight and refreshment of the whole school.  The order was now given "To the garden!"  Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze.  I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air.  The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner.  When full of flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay.  I shuddered as I stood and looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday.  The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough.  As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much.  I leant against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking.  My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture.  I looked round the convent-like garden, and then up at the house--a large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new.  The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:--  "Lowood Institution.--This portion was rebuilt A.D. ---, by Naomi Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county."  "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."--St. Matt. v. 16.  I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import.  I was still pondering the signification of "Institution," and endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head.  I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the title--it was "Rasselas;" a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive.  In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly--

Housing

"Is your book interesting?"  I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day.  "I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which she examined me.  "What is it about?" I continued.  I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial.  "You may look at it," replied the girl, offering me the book.  I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title: "Rasselas" looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed spread over the closely-printed pages.  I returned it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her--  "Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means?  What is Lowood Institution?"  "This house where you are come to live."  "And why do they call it Institution?  Is it in any way different from other schools?"  "It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of us, are charity-children.  I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your father or your mother dead?"  "Both died before I can remember."  "Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for educating orphans."  "Do we pay no money?  Do they keep us for nothing?"  "We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each."  "Then why do they call us charity-children?"  "Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the deficiency is supplied by subscription."  "Who subscribes?"

Dilemmas

"Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood and in London."  "Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?"  "The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."  "Why?"  "Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment."  "Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?"  "To Miss Temple?  Oh, no!  I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does.  Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and all our clothes."  "Does he live here?"  "No--two miles off, at a large hall."  "Is he a good man?"  "He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good."  "Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?"  "Yes."  "And what are the other teachers called?"  "The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts out--for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French."  "Do you like the teachers?"  "Well enough."  "Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ---?--I cannot pronounce her name as you do."  "Miss Scatcherd is hasty--you must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."

Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well understand her--that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed.  I recalled her to my level.  "And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?"  "No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain."  "Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"  "Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me.  There is no merit in such goodness."  "A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you.  It is all I ever desire to be.  If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse.  When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again."  "You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl."  "But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly.  It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."  "Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it."  "How?  I don't understand."  "It is not violence that best overcomes hate--nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury."  "What then?"  "Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example."  "What does He say?"  "Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you."

Hating my house

"Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished."  The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.  "Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction.  I was no Helen Burns.  "Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.  "Place the child upon it."  And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.  Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.  "Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?"  Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.  "You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character.  Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her?  Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case."  A pause--in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.  "My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, "this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien.  You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse.  Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut--this girl is--a liar!"

And it all comes tumbling down…

ortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela.  She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.  "Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie.  She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester.  Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place.  I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf.  And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"  "Eyre--Jane Eyre."  "Aire?  Bah!  I cannot say it.  Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel.  We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."  "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.  I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.  "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"  "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"  "I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.  Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses.  A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.  Shall I let you hear me sing now?"

The Lost

ortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela.  She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.  "Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie.  She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester.  Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place.  I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf.  And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"  "Eyre--Jane Eyre."  "Aire?  Bah!  I cannot say it.  Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel.  We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs."  "Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.  I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot.  "I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"  "Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?"  "I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin.  Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses.  A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it.  Shall I let you hear me sing now?"