18 Jane Eyre - Bedtime With Stephanie Poppins

Jane Eyre is a first-person narrative from the perspective of the title character. Its setting is somewhere in the north of England, late in the reign of George III (1760–1820).

Jane's childhood is at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins. Her education is at Lowood School, where she gains friends and role models but suffers privations and oppression.

In this episode, there are many guests at Lowood, which causes Jane to examine her feelings.

Read and abridged by English author and vocal artist Stephanie Poppins.

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

But before we begin,

Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

That's it.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

This is SD Hudson Magic.

Jane Eyre Chapter 18 Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall and busy days too.

How different from the first three months of stillness,

Monotony,

And solitude I had passed beneath its roof.

All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house.

All gloomy associations forgotten.

There was life everywhere,

Movement all day long.

You could not now traverse the gallery once so hushed,

Nor enter the front chambers once so tenantless,

Without encountering a smart lady's maid or a dandy valet.

The kitchen,

The butler's pantry,

The servant's hall,

The entrance hall were equally alive and the saloons were only left void and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds.

Even when the weather was broken and continuous rain set in for some days,

No damp seemed cast over enjoyment.

Indoor amusements only became more lively and varied in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety.

I wondered what they were going to do the first evening.

A change of entertainment was proposed.

They spoke of playing charades,

But in my ignorance I did not understand the term.

The servants were called in.

The dining room tables wheeled away.

The lights otherwise disposed.

The chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch.

While Mr.

Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations,

The ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids.

Mrs.

Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls,

Dresses,

Draperies of any kind.

And certain wardrobes of the third story were ransacked and their contents,

In the shapes of brocaded and hooped pedicams,

Etc.

,

Were brought down in armfuls by the Abigail's.

Then a selection was made and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing room.

Meantime,

Mr.

Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party.

Miss Ingram is mine,

Of course,

Said he.

Afterwards he named the two Mrs.

Eshton and Mrs.

Dent.

He looked at me.

I happened to be near him as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs.

Dent's bracelet,

Which had got loose.

Will you play,

He asked.

I shook my head.

He did not insist,

Which I rather feared he would have done.

He allowed me to return quietly to my usual seat.

He and his aides now withdrew behind the curtain.

The other party,

Which was headed by Colonel Dent,

Sat down on the crescent of chairs.

One of the gentlemen,

Mr.

Eshton,

Observing me,

Seemed to propose I should be asked to join them,

But Lady Ingram instantly negated the notion.

No,

I heard her say.

She looks too stupid for any game of the sort.

Earlong,

A bell tingled and the curtain drew up.

Within the arch,

The bulky figure of Sir George Lynn,

Whom Mr.

Rochester had likewise chosen,

Was seen enveloped in a white sheet.

Before him,

On a table,

Sat a large open book,

And at his side stood Amy Eshton,

Draped in Mr.

Rochester's cloak and holding a book in her hand.

Somebody unseen rang the bell merrily,

Then Adele bounded forward,

Scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried.

Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram,

Clad in white.

A long veil on her head and a wreath of roses around her brow.

By her side walked Mr.

Rochester,

And together they drew near the table.

They knelt,

While Mrs.

Dent and Louisa Eshton,

Dressed also in white,

Took up their stations behind them.

A ceremony followed,

In dumb show,

In which it was easy to recognise the pantomime.

In which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage.

At its termination,

Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes,

Then the Colonel called out,

Bride!

Mr.

Rochester bowed and the curtain fell.

A considerable interval elapsed before it rose again.

Its second rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last.

The drawing room,

As I have before observed,

Was raised two steps above the dining room,

And on the top of the upper step,

Placed a yard or two back within the room,

Appeared a large marble basin,

Which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory.

Seated on the carpet by the side of this basin was seen Mr.

Rochester,

Costumed in shawls with a turban on his head.

His dark eyes and swollen skin suited the costume exactly.

He looked the very model of an eastern emir,

An agent or a victim of the bow string.

Presently advanced into view,

Miss Ingram.

She too was attired in oriental fashion,

A crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist.

An embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples,

Her beautifully moulded arms bare.

One of them raised in the act of supporting a picture,

Poised gracefully on her head.

She approached the basin and bent over it as if to fill her picture.

She again lifted it to her head.

From the bosom of Mr.

Rochester's robe,

He produced a casket,

Opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings.

Miss Ingram acted astonishment and admiration.

Kneeling,

He laid the treasure at her feet.

This was Eliza and Rebecca.

The camels only were wanting.

The divining party laid their heads together.

Apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable this scene illustrated.

Colonel Dent,

Their spokesman,

Demanded,

The tableau of the whole,

Whereupon the curtain again descended.

On its third rising,

Only a portion of the drawing room was disclosed,

The rest being concealed by a screen.

The marble basin had been removed and in its place stood a deal table and a kitchen chair.

These objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horned lantern.

Amidst this sordid scene sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees and his eyes bent on the ground.

I knew it to be Mr.

Rochester.

As he moved,

A chain clanked and to his wrist were attached fetters.

Bridewell,

Exclaimed Colonel Dent,

And the charade was solved.

A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume,

They re-entered the dining room.

Do you know,

Said Miss Ingram,

That of the three characters I liked you in the last best?

Oh,

Had you but lived a few years earlier,

What a gallant gentleman highwayman you would have made.

Is all the soot washed from my face?

He asked,

Turning it towards her.

Alas,

Yes,

More's the pity.

Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian's rogue.

You would like a hero of the road then?

An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit.

Well,

Whatever I am,

Remember you are my wife.

We were married an hour since in the presence of all these witnesses.

Miss Ingram giggled and her colour rose.

Now Dent,

Continued Mr.

Rochester,

It is your turn.

And as the other party withdrew,

He and his band took the vacated seats.

I watched as she inclined her head towards him till the jetty curls almost touched his shoulder and waved against his cheek.

I heard their mutual whisperings and recalled their interchanged glances.

And something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment.

I have told you,

Reader,

I had learnt to love Mr.

Rochester and I could not unlove him now,

Merely because I found he'd ceased to notice me.

All his attentions were appropriated by a great lady who scorned to touch me with a hem of her robes as she passed,

Who,

If ever her dark and imperious eye fell upon me by chance,

Would withdraw it as instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation.

I could not unlove him because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady,

Because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her,

Because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which,

If careless,

And choosing rather to be sought than to seek,

Was yet in its very carelessness captivating and in its very pride irresistible.

There is nothing to call or banish love in these circumstances,

Though much to create despair.

Much,

Too,

You will think,

Reader,

To engender jealousy.

If a woman in my position could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram's.

But I was not jealous,

Or very rarely.

The nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word.

Miss Ingram was a mark beneath the jealousy.

She was too inferior to excite the feeling.

Pardon the seeming paradox.

I mean what I say.

She was very showy,

But she was not genuine.

She had a fine person,

Many brilliant attainments,

But her mind was poor,

Her heart barren by nature.

Nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil,

No unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness.

She was not good.

She was not original.

She used to repeat sounding phrases from books.

She never offered,

Nor had,

An opinion of her own.

She advocated a high tone of sentiment,

But she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity,

Tenderness and truth,

Were not in her.

Too often she betrayed this by the unjuvent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adele,

Pushing her away if she happened to approach her.

Sometimes ordering her from the room and always treating her with coldness and acrimony.

Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character closely,

Keenly,

Shrewdly.

Yes,

The future bridegroom,

Mr.

Rochester himself,

Exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance.

And it was from this sagacity,

This guardedness of his,

This perfect clear consciousness of his fair one's defects,

This obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her,

That my ever-torturing pain arose.

I saw he was going to marry her,

For family,

Perhaps political reasons,

Because he was a man of his word.

I felt he had not given her his love and that her qualifications were ill-adapted to win from him that treasure.

This was the point.

This was where the nerve was touched and teased.

This was where the fever was sustained and fed.

Miss Ingram could not charm him.

I felt he had not given her his love and that her qualifications were ill-adapted to win from him.

If she had managed the victory at once and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet,

I should have covered my face,

Turned to the wall,

And figuratively have died to them.

If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman,

Endowed with force,

Fervour,

Kindness and sense,

I should have won vital struggle with two tigers,

Jealousy and despair.

Then,

My heart torn out and devoured,

I should have admired her,

Acknowledged her excellence and been quiet for the rest of my days.

And the more absolute her superiority,

The deeper would have been my admiration,

The more truly tranquil my quiescence.

But as matters really stood,

To watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr Rochester,

To witness their repeated failure,

Her self-unconscious they did fail,

Vainly fancying each shaft launched hit the mark.

When her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure,

To witness this was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.

Because when she failed,

I saw how she might have succeeded.

Arrows that continually glanced off Mr Rochester's breast and felt harmless at his feet,

Might,

I knew,

If shot by a surer hand,

Have quivered keen in his proud heart,

Called love into his stern eye and softness into his sardonic face.

Better still,

Without weapons,

A silent conquest might have been won.

Why can she not influence him more when she is privileged to draw so near to him?

I asked myself.

Surely she cannot like him with true affection.

How will she manage to please him when they're married?

Do not think she will manage it.

And yet it might be managed and his wife might,

I believe,

Be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.

Reviews

Love the end of this chapter, Jane is so astute! Can’t wait for more… as always, your devoted fan 🙏🏽❤️🥰