29 Cont. Jane Eyre Read By Stephanie Poppins

Jane Eyre is a woman with a difficult past. Her childhood was at Gateshead Hall, where she was emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins. Her education was at Lowood School, where she gained few friends and role models and suffered privations and oppression. Then she arrives at Thornfield and meets the inimitable Mr Rochester...

In this episode, just as Christ was in a sense reborn, Jane is metaphorically born into a new family. The family also seems to be of her class, with two sisters in school and a person who, like her father, works with the poor.

Transcript

This is SD Hudson Magic Jane Eyre Chapter 29 Continued Hannah was evidently fond of talking.

While I picked the fruit and she made the paste for the pies,

She proceeded to give me sundry details about her deceased master and mistress and the Childer,

As she called the young people.

Old Mr River,

She said,

Was a plain man enough,

But a gentleman and of as ancient a family as could be found.

Marsh End had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house and was,

She affirmed,

About two hundred years old,

For it all looked but a small humble place.

Now to compare with Mr Oliver's grand hall down in Mort Vale,

She said,

But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needle maker,

And the Rivers,

She said,

Were gentry in those days.

Still,

She allowed,

The old master was like other folk,

Now much of it common way,

Stark mad as shooting and farming and such like.

The mistress was different.

She was a great reader and had studied a deal,

And the Bairns had taken after her.

There was nothing like them in these parts,

She said,

Nor ever had there been.

They liked learning,

All three of them,

Almost from the time they could speak,

And they'd always been of a mark of their own.

Mr St John,

When he grew up,

Would go to college and be a parson,

And the girls,

As soon as they left school,

Would seek places as governesses,

For they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt,

And he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes so they must provide for themselves.

They had lived very little at home for a long while,

And were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their father's death,

But they did so like Marsh End and Morton and all these moors and hills about.

They had been in London and many other grand towns,

But they always said there was no place like home,

And they were so agreeable with each other they never fell out.

Hannah said she did not know where there was such a family for being united.

Having finished my task of gooseberry picking,

I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now.

Gone over to Morton for a walk,

But they'd be back in half an hour to tea,

She said.

They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them,

And they entered by the kitchen door.

Mr St John,

When he saw me,

Merely bowed and passed through.

The two ladies stopped.

Mary,

In a few words kindly and calmly,

Expressed the pleasure she'd felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down.

Diana took my hand and she shook her head at me.

You should have waited for my leave to descend,

She said.

You still look very pale and so thin.

Poor child,

Poor girl.

Diana had a voice toned to my ear like the cooing of a dove.

She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter.

Her whole face seemed to me full of charm.

Mary's countenance was equally intelligent,

Her features equally pretty,

But her expression was more reserved,

And her manners,

Though gentle,

More distant.

Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority.

She had a will,

Evidently.

It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers,

And to bend where my conscience and self-respect permitted,

To an active will.

Then what business have you here?

Continued Diana.

It's not your place.

Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes because at home we like to be free,

Even to license,

But you are a visitor and you must go into the parlour.

I am very well here.

Not at all with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour.

Besides,

The fire is too hot for you,

Interposed Mary.

To be sure,

Added her sister.

Come,

You must be obedient.

And still holding my hand,

Diana made me rise and led me into the inner room.

Sit there,

She said,

Placing me on the sofa,

While we take our things off and get the tea ready.

It is another privilege we exercise in our little moorland home,

To prepare our own meals when we are so inclined,

Or when Hannah is baking,

Brewing,

Washing,

Or ironing.

She closed the door,

Leaving me soulless with Mr.

St.

John,

Who sat opposite.

A book or a newspaper in his hand.

I examined first the parlour and then its occupant.

The parlour was rather a small room,

Very plainly furnished,

Yet comfortable,

Because clean and neat.

The old-fashioned chairs were very bright,

And the walnut wood table was like a looking-glass.

A few strange antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated the stained walls.

A cupboard with glass doors contained some books and an ancient set of china.

There was no superfluous ornament in the room,

Not one modern piece of furniture save a brace of workboxes and a lady's desk in rosewood,

Which stood on a side table.

Everything,

Including the carpet and curtains,

Looked at once well-worn and well-saved.

Mr.

St.

John,

Sitting as still as one of the dusky pictures on the walls,

Keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused and his lips mutely sealed,

Was easy enough to examine.

Had he been a statue instead of a man,

He could not have been easier.

He was young,

Perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty,

Tall,

Slender.

His face riveted the eye.

It was like a Greek face,

Very pure in outline,

Quite a straight,

Classic nose,

Quite an Athenian mouth and chin.

It is seldom indeed an English face comes so near the antique models as did his.

He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my liniments,

His being so harmonious.

His eyes were large and blue,

With brown lashes.

His high forehead,

Colourless as ivory,

Was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair.

This is a gentle lineation,

Is it not,

Reader?

Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle,

A yielding,

An impressible or even of a placid nature.

Quiescent as he now sat,

There was something about his nostril,

His mouth,

His brow,

Which to my perceptions indicated elements within either restless or hard or eager.

He did not speak to me one word or even direct to me one glance till his sisters returned.

Diana,

As she passed in and out in the course of preparing tea,

Brought me little cake,

Baked on the top of the oven.

Eat that now,

She said.

You must be hungry.

Hannah says you've had nothing but some gruel since breakfast.

I did not refuse it,

For my appetite was awakened and keen.

Mr Rivers now closed his book,

Approached the table,

And as he took a seat fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me.

There was an unceremonious directness,

A searching,

Excited steadfastness in his gaze now which told that intention,

And not diffidence,

Had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger.

You are very hungry,

He said.

I am,

Sir.

It is my way,

It always was my way by instinct,

Ever to meet the brief with brevity,

The direct with plainness.

It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days.

There would have been a danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first.

Now you may eat,

Though still not immoderately.

I trust I shall not eat long at your expense,

Sir,

Was my very clumsily contrived,

Unpolished answer.

No,

He said coolly.

When you have indicated to us the residence of your friends,

We can write to them,

And you may be restored to home.

That,

I must plainly tell you,

Is out of my power to do,

Being absolutely without home and friends.

The three looked at me,

But not distrustfully.

I felt there was no suspicion in their glances,

There was more of curiosity.

I speak particularly of the young ladies.

St John's eyes,

Though clear enough in a literal sense,

In a figurative one were difficult to fathom.

He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's thoughts than as agents to reveal his own.

The witch combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage.

Do you mean to say,

He asked,

That you are completely isolated from every connection?

I do.

Not a tie links me to any living thing,

Not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England.

A most singular position at your age.

Here I saw his glance directed to my hands,

Which were folded on the table before me.

I wondered what he sought there.

His words soon explained the quest.

You have never been married?

You are a spinster.

Diana laughed.

Why,

She can't be above seventeen or eighteen years old,

St John,

Said she.

I am near nineteen,

But I am not married,

No.

I felt a burning glow mount to my face,

For bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage.

They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion.

Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimson visage,

But the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze till the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well as colour.

Where did you last reside?

He now asked.

You are too inquisitive,

St John,

Murmured Mary in a low voice,

But he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and piercing look.

The name of the place where,

And of the person with whom I lived,

Is my secret,

I replied concisely.

Which,

If you like,

You have in my opinion a right to keep,

Both from St John and every other questioner,

Remarked Diana.

Yet if I know nothing about you or your history,

I cannot help you,

Said St John,

And you need help,

Do you not?

I need it,

And I seek it,

So far so that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can do,

And the remuneration for which will keep me if but in the barest necessaries of life.

I do not know whether I am a true philanthropist,

Yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest.

First tell me what you have been accustomed to do and what you can do.

I had now swallowed my tea.

It was mightily refreshed by the beverage,

As much so as a giant with wine.

It gave new tone to my unstrung nerves and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.

Mr Rivers,

I said,

Turning to him,

And looking at him as he looked at me,

Openly and without dividends.

You and your sisters have done me a great service.

The greatest man can do his fellow being.

You have rescued me by your noble hospitality from death.

This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude and a claim to a certain extent on my confidence.

I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have harboured as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind,

My own security,

Moral and physical,

And that of others.

I am an orphan,

The daughter of a clergyman.

My parents died before I could know them.

I was brought up a dependent,

Educated in a charitable institution.

I will even tell you the name of the establishment where I passed six years as a pupil and two as a teacher,

Lowood Orphan Asylum.

You will have heard of it,

Mr Rivers.

The Reverend Robert Brocklehurst is the treasurer.

I have heard of Mr Brocklehurst and I have seen the school.

I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess.

I obtained a good situation and I was happy.

This place I was obliged to leave four days before I came here.

The reason of my departure I cannot and ought not to explain.

It would be useless,

Dangerous and would sound incredible.

No blame attached to me,

I am as free from culpability as any one of you three.

Miserable I am and must be for a time,

For the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature.

I observed but two points in planning my departure.

Speed,

Secrecy.

To secure these I had to leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel which in my hurry and trouble of mind I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to White Cross.

To this neighbourhood then I came quite destitute.

I slept two nights in the open air and wandered about two days without crossing a threshold but twice in that space of time did I taste food and it was when brought by hunger,

Exhaustion and despair almost to the last gasp that you,

Mr.

Rivers,

Forbade me to perish of want at your door and took me under the shelter of your roof.

I know all your sisters have done for me since for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor and I owe to their spontaneous,

Genuine,

Genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity.

Don't make her talk any more now,

St.

John said Diana as I paused.

She's evidently not fit for excitement.

Come to the sofa and sit down now,

Miss Elliot.

I gave an involuntarily half-start at hearing the alias.

I had forgotten my new name.

Mr.

Rivers,

Whom nothing seemed to escape,

Noticed it at once.

You said your name was Jane Elliot,

He observed.

I did say so and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be called at present but it is not my real name and when I hear it,

It does sound strange to me.

Your real name you will not give?

No,

I fear discovery above all things and whatever disclosure would lead to it,

I avoid.

You were quite right,

I'm sure,

Said Diana.

Now do,

Brother,

Let her be at peace a while.

But when St.

John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably as with as much acumen as ever.

You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality.

You would wish,

I see,

To dispense as soon as may be with my sister's compassion and above all with my charity.

You desire to be independent of us?

I do,

I have already said so.

Show me how to work or how to seek work,

That is now all I ask.

Let me go,

If it be but to the meanest cottage but till then allow me to stay here.

I dread another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution.

Indeed you shall stay here,

Said Diana,

Putting her white hand on my head.

You shall,

Repeated Mary in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity which seemed natural to her.

My sisters,

You see,

Have a pleasure in keeping you,

Said Mr.

St.

John as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird.

Some wintry wind might have driven through their casement.

I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself and shall endeavour to do so.

But observe,

My sphere is narrow.

I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish.

My aid must be of the humblest sort and if you are inclined to despise the day of small things seek some more efficient secure than such as I can offer.

She has already said she's willing to do anything honest she can do answered Diana for me and you know,

St.

John,

She has no choice of helpers.

She's forced to put up with such crusty people as you.

I will be a dressmaker,

Said I.

I will be a plain workwoman.

I will be a servant,

A nurse girl if I can be no better.

Right,

Said Mr.

St.

John quite coolly.

If such is your spirit I promise to aid you in my own time and way.

He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea.

I soon withdrew for I had talked as much and set up as long as my present strength would permit.

Reviews

Oh dear Jane. Thank goodness she landed… thank you🙏🏼