29 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, there is a glimmer of hope for Jane.

Transcript

This is SD Hudson Magic Jane Eyre Chapter 29 The recollection of about three days and nights exceeding this is very dim in my mind.

I can recall some sensations felt in that interval,

But few thoughts framed and no actions performed.

I knew I was in a small room and in a narrow bed.

To that bed I seemed to have grown.

I lay on it motionless as a stone,

And to have torn me from it would have almost been to kill me.

I took no note of the lapse of time,

Of the change from morning to noon,

From noon to evening.

I observed when anyone entered or left the apartment.

I could tell who they were.

I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me,

But I could not answer.

To open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible.

Hannah,

The servant,

Was my most frequent visitor.

Her coming disturbed me.

I had a feeling she wished me away,

That she did not understand me or my circumstances,

That she was prejudiced against me.

Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day.

They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside.

It is very well we took her in.

Yes,

She would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning had she been left out all night.

I wonder what she has gone through.

Strange hardships,

I imagine.

Poor,

Emaciated,

Pallid wanderer.

She is not an uneducated person,

I should think,

By her manner of speaking.

Her accent was quite pure,

And the clothes she took off,

Though splashed and wet,

Were little worn and fine.

She has a peculiar face,

Fleshless and haggard as it is.

I rather like it,

And when in good health and animated,

I can fancy her physiognomy would be agreeable.

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me,

Or of suspicion of or aversion to myself.

I was comforted.

Mr St John came but once.

He looked at me and said my state of lethargy was a result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue.

He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor.

Nature,

He was sure,

Would manage best left to herself.

He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way,

And the whole system must sleep torpid a while.

There was no disease.

He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when once commenced.

These opinions he delivered in a few words,

In a quiet,

Low voice,

And added after a pause,

In the tone of a man quite accustomed to expansive comment.

Rather an unusual physiognomy,

Certainly not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.

Far otherwise,

Responded Diana.

To speak truth,

St John,

My heart rather warms to the poor little soul.

I wish we may be able to benefit her permanently.

That is hardly likely,

Was the reply.

You will find she is some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends,

And has probably injudiciously left them.

We may perhaps succeed in restoring her to them if she is not obstinate,

But I trace lines of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability.

He stood considering me some minutes,

Then added,

She looks sensible,

But not at all handsome.

She is so ill,

St John.

Ill or well,

She will always be plain.

The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those features.

On the third day I was better.

On the fourth I could speak,

Move,

Rise in bed,

And turn.

Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast,

About as I suppose the dinner hour.

I had eaten with relish.

The food was good,

Void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed.

When she left,

I felt comparatively strong and revived.

A long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me.

I wished to rise,

But what could I put on?

Only my damp and bemired apparel,

In which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh.

I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad.

I was spared the humiliation.

On a chair by the bedside were all my own things,

Clean and dry.

My black silk frock hung against the wall.

The traces of the bog were removed from it.

The creases left by the wet smoothed out.

It was quite decent.

My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable.

There were the means of washing in the room,

And a comb and a brush to smooth my hair.

After a weary process,

And resting every five minutes,

I succeeded in dressing myself.

My clothes hung loose on me,

For I was much wasted.

But I covered deficiencies with a shawl,

And once more clean and respectable looking.

No speck of the dirt,

Nor traces of the disorder I so hated,

And which seemed so to degrade me.

I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters,

To a narrow low passage,

And found my way presently to the kitchen.

It was full of the fragrance of new bread,

And the warmth of a generous fire.

Hannah was baking.

Prejudices,

It is well known,

Are most difficult to eradicate from the heart,

Whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education.

They grow there,

Firm as weeds among stones.

Hannah had been cold and stiff indeed at the first.

Latterly she had begun to relent a little,

And when she saw me coming tidy and well dressed,

She even smiled.

Bob,

You've got up,

She said.

You're better then.

You may sit down in my chair on the hearthstone if you will.

She pointed to the rocking chair,

And I took it.

She bustled about,

Examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye.

Turning to me as she took some loaves from the oven,

She asked bluntly,

Did you ever go begging before you came here?

I was indignant for a moment,

But remembering that anger was out of the question,

And I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her,

I answered quietly,

But still not without a certain marked firmness.

You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar.

I am no beggar,

Any more than yourself or your young ladies.

After a pause she said,

I do not understand that.

You've like no house nor no brass,

I guess.

The want of house or brass,

By which I suppose you mean money,

Does not make a beggar in your sense of the word.

Are you book-learned?

She inquired presently.

Yes,

Very.

But you've never been to a boarding school?

I was at a boarding school for eight years.

Hannah opened her eyes wide.

Whatever cannot you keep yourself for,

Then?

I have kept myself,

And I trust shall keep myself again.

What are you going to do with those gooseberries?

I inquired as she brought out a basket of the fruit.

Make them into pies.

Give them to me,

And I'll pick them.

Nay,

I do not want you to do me knout.

But I must do something.

Let me have them.

Hannah consented,

And she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my dress.

Blessed,

She said,

I should mucky it.

You're not being used to servant's work,

I see,

By your hands,

She remarked.

Happen you've been a dressmaker or summat?

No,

You were wrong.

And now,

Never mind what I've been.

Don't trouble your head further about me,

I said.

But tell me the name of the house where we are.

Some calls it Marsh End,

And some calls it Moor House.

The gentleman who lives here is called Mr.

St.

John?

Nay,

He doesn't live here.

He's only staying a while.

When he's at home,

He's in his own parish at Moreton.

That village a few miles off?

Aye.

And what is he?

He's a parson.

I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage when I had asked to see the clergyman.

This,

Then,

Was his father's residence?

Aye.

Old Mr.

Rivers lived here,

And his father and grandfather and great-grandfather for him.

The name,

Then,

Of that gentleman is Mr.

St.

John Rivers?

Aye.

St.

John is like his cursant name.

And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?

Yeah.

Their father is dead.

Dead three weeks since of a stroke.

They have no mother.

Their mistress has been dead this many a year.

Have you lived with the family long?

I've lived here nearly thirty years.

I nurse them all free.

That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant.

I will say so much for you,

Though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar.

Hannah,

Then,

Regarded me with a surprised stare.

I believe,

She said,

I was quite mistaken in my thoughts of you,

But there's so many cheats about.

You munk,

Forgive me.

And though,

I continued rather severely,

You wished to turn me from the door on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.

Well,

It was hard,

But what can a body do?

I thought more of the child and not of myself,

Poor things.

Like nobody to take care of them but me.

I'm like to look sharpish.

I maintained a grieved silence for some minutes.

You munk think too hardly of me,

She again remarked.

But I do think hardly of you,

I said,

And I'll tell you why.

Not so much because you refused to give me shelter or regarded me as an imposter,

As because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no brass and no house.

Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am.

And if you were a Christian,

You ought not to consider poverty a crime.

No more I ought,

Said she.

Mr.

St.

John tells me so too,

And I see I'm all wrong,

But I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had.

You look right down decent,

Little crater.

That will do,

I forgive you now,

I said.

Let's shake hands.

She put her flowery and horny hand into mine.

Another and heartier smile illuminated her rough face.

And from that moment,

We were friends.

Reviews

Oh goodness, just in the Nick of time for our girl… very well read, thank you 🙏🏼 ❤️