21 Further Cont. Jane Eyre - Abridged By 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 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, Jane gains an insight into the lives of Eliza and Georgiana, before she says goodbye to her wicked aunt.

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 21 continued.

It was more than 10 days later.

It was more than 10 days later before I had again any conversation with Mrs.

Reed.

She continued either delirious or lethargic and the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her.

Meantime,

I got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza.

They were very cold indeed at first.

Eliza would sit half a day sewing,

Reading or writing and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister.

Georgiana would chat and nonsense to her canary bird by the hour and take no notice of me.

But I was determined not to seem at a loss for occupation or amusement.

I had brought my drawing materials with me and they served me for both.

Provided with a case of pencils and some sheets of paper,

I used to take a seat apart from them near the window and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination.

A glimpse of sea between two rocks,

The rising moon and a ship crossing its disc.

A group of reeds and water flags in a night's head,

Crowned with lotus flowers,

Rising out of them,

An elf sitting in a hedge sparrow's nest under a wreath of hawthorn bloom.

One morning I fell to sketching a face.

What sort of a face it was to be,

I cared not.

I took a soft black pencil,

Gave it a broad point and worked away.

Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage.

That contour gave me pleasure.

My fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features.

Strongly marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow,

Then followed naturally a well-defined nose,

With a straight ridge and full nostrils,

Then a flexible-looking mouth,

By no means narrow,

And a firm chin with a decided cleft on the middle of it.

Of course,

Some black whiskers were wanted and jetty hair tufted on the temples and waved above the forehead.

Now for the eyes.

I had left them to the last because they required the most careful working.

I drew them large.

I shaped them well.

The eyelashes I traced long and sombre,

The irids lustrous and large.

Good,

But not quite the thing,

I thought as I surveyed the effect.

They want more force and spirit.

And I wrought the shades blacker,

That the lights might flash more brilliantly.

A happy touch or two secured success.

There,

I had a friend's face under my gaze.

And what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me?

I looked at it.

I smiled at the speaking likeness.

I was absorbed and content.

Is that a portrait of someone you know?

Asked Eliza,

Who had approached me unnoticed.

I responded it was merely a fancy head and hurried it beneath the other sheets.

Of course,

I lied.

It was,

In fact,

A very faithful representation of Mr.

Rochester.

But what was that to her or to anyone but myself?

Georgiana also advanced to look.

The other drawings pleased her much,

But she called that an ugly man.

They both seemed surprised at my skill.

I offered to sketch their portraits and each in turn sat for a pencil outline.

Then Georgiana produced her album.

I promised to contribute a watercolour drawing.

This put her at once into good humour.

She proposed a walk in the grounds.

Before we had been out two hours,

We were deep in a confidential conversation.

She had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she'd spent in London two seasons ago.

Of the admiration she had for me,

And of the attention she had received.

And I even got hints of the title conquest she had made.

In the course of the afternoon and evening,

These hints were enlarged on.

Various soft conversations were reported and sentimental scenes represented.

In short,

A volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit.

The communications were renewed from day to day.

They always ran on the same theme.

Herself,

Her loves and her woes.

It was strange she never once averted either to her mother's illness or her brother's death or the present gloomy state of the family prospect.

Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety and aspirations after dissipations to come.

She passed about five minutes each day in her mother's sick room and no more.

Eliza still spoke little.

She had evidently no time to talk.

I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be.

Yet it was difficult to say what she did or rather to discover any result of her diligence.

She had an alarm to call her up early.

I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast,

But after that meal she divided her time into regular portions and each hour had his allotted task.

Three times a day she studied a little book which I found on inspection was a common prayer book.

I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume and she said,

The rubric.

Three hours she gave to stitching with gold thread,

The border of a square crimson cloth,

Almost large enough for a carpet.

In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article,

She informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church,

Lately erected near Giggshead.

Two hours she devoted to her diary,

Two to working by herself in the kitchen garden,

And one to the regulation of her accounts.

She seemed to want no company,

No conversation.

I believe she was happy in her way.

This routine sufficed to her and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity.

She told me one evening,

When more disposed to be communicative than usual,

That John's conduct and the threatened ruin of the family had been a source of profound affliction to her.

But she had now,

She said,

Settled her mind and formed her resolution.

Her own fortune she had taken care to secure and when her mother died,

And it was wholly improbable,

She tranquilly remarked that she should either recover or linger long,

Would execute a long cherished project.

Seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from disturbance and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world.

I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.

Of course not.

Georgiana had said she had nothing in common and they never had had.

She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration.

Georgiana should take her own course and Eliza would take hers.

Georgiana,

When not unburdening her heart to me,

Spent most of her time in lying on the sofa fretting about the dullness of the house and wishing over and over again her Aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town.

It would be so much better,

She said,

If I could only get out of the way for a month or two till all is over.

I did not ask what she meant by all being over,

But I suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites.

Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister's indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring lounging object had been before her.

One day,

However,

As she put away her account book and unfolded her embroidery,

She suddenly took up thus.

Georgiana,

A more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth.

You had no right to be born,

For you make no use of life.

Instead of living for,

In,

And with yourself as a reasonable being ought,

You seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength.

If no one can be found willing to burden himself with such a fat,

Weak,

Puffy,

Useless thing,

You cry out you're ill-treated,

Neglected,

And miserable.

Then,

Too,

Existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement,

Or else the world is a dungeon.

You must be admired.

You must be courted.

You must be flattered.

Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts and all wills but your own?

Take one day.

Share it into sections.

To each section apportion its task.

Leave no stray,

Unemployed quarters of an hour.

Ten minutes,

Five minutes,

Include all.

Do each piece of business in its turn with method,

With rigid regularity.

The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun,

And you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment.

I can tell you this.

If the whole human race,

Ourselves accepted,

Were swept away and we,

Too,

Stood alone on the earth,

I would leave you in the old world and betake myself to the new.

" Then she closed her lips.

You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,

Answered Georgiana.

Everybody knows you're the most selfish,

Heartless creature in existence,

And I know your spiteful hatred towards me.

I have had a specimen of it before,

In the trick you played about Lord Edwin Vere.

You could not bear me to be raised above you,

To have a title,

To be received into circles where you dare not show your face.

So you acted the spy and the informer.

Ruined my prospects forever.

Georgiana then took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards,

Whilst Elizabeth sat cold,

Impassable,

And assiduously industrious.

Here were two natures rendered,

The one intolerably acrid,

The other despicably savourless for the want of it.

Feeling without judgment is a washy draft indeed.

It was a wet and windy afternoon.

Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel.

Eliza was gone to attend a Saint's Day service at the new church.

I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped,

Who lay there almost unheeded.

I found the sick-room unwatched,

As I had expected.

No nurse was there.

The patient lay still,

And seemingly lethargic,

Her livid face sunk in the pillows.

The fire was dying in the grate,

So I renewed the fuel,

Rearranged the bedclothes,

Gazed a while on her,

Who could not now gaze on me,

Then moved away to the window.

The rain beat strongly against the panes.

The wind blew tempestuously.

One lies there,

I thought,

Who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements.

In pondering the great mystery,

I thought of Helen Burns.

I recalled her dying words,

Her faith,

Her doctrine of the equality of disembodied souls.

I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered tones,

When a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind.

Who is that?

I knew Mrs.

Reed had not spoken for days,

So I went to her.

It is I,

Aunt Reed.

Who,

I?

Was her answer.

Who are you?

You are a stranger to me.

Where is Bessie?

She is at the lodge,

Aunt.

Aunt?

She repeated.

Who calls me Aunt?

You are not one of the Gibsons,

And yet I know you.

That face,

The eyes,

The forehead are quite familiar.

Why,

You are like Jane Eyre.

I said nothing.

I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity.

Yet,

Said she,

I am afraid it is a mistake.

My thoughts deceive me.

I wish to see Jane Eyre,

And I fancy a likeness where none exists.

I now gently assured her I was the person she supposed,

And seeing that I was understood,

And her senses were quite collected,

I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.

I am very ill,

I know,

She said,

Earlong.

I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since,

And I cannot move a limb.

It is as well I should ease my mind before I die.

Is the nurse here?

Or is there no one in the room but you?

I assured her we were alone.

Well,

I have twice done you a wrong,

Which I regret now.

One was in breaking the promise I gave to my husband,

And the other?

After all,

It is of no great importance.

Perhaps I may get better still,

And to humble myself is painful.

She made an effort to alter her position,

But failed.

Then her face changed.

She seemed to experience some inward sensation.

The precursor,

Perhaps,

Of the last pang.

Well,

I must get it over.

Eternity is before me.

I had better tell her.

Go to my dressing-case and open it.

Take out a letter that you will see there.

" I obeyed her instructions.

Read the letter,

She said.

It was short,

And thus conceived.

Madam,

Will you have the goodness to send me the address of the man who died?

It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira.

Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency,

And,

As I am unmarried and childless,

I wish to adopt her during my life and bequeath her at her deathbed.

I am not sure I will be able to do so.

And,

As I am unmarried and childless,

I wish to adopt her during my life and bequeath her at my death,

Whatever I may have to leave.

I am Madam,

Etc.

,

Etc.

,

John Eyre,

Madeira.

It was dated three years back.

Why did I never hear of this?

I inquired.

Because I disliked you too fixedly to ever lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity.

I could not forget your conduct to me,

Jane,

The fury with which you once turned on me,

Tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world,

The unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed the very thought of me made you sick.

Now,

Bring me some water,

Or make haste.

" "'Dear Mrs.

Reed,

' said I,

As I offered her the draught she required,

"'think no more of all this.

Let it pass away from your mind.

' "'Forgive me for my passionate language.

I was a child then.

Eight or nine years have passed since that day.

' "'Mrs.

Reed heeded nothing of what I said,

But when she had tasted the water and drawn breath,

She went on thus,

"'You were born,

I think,

To my torment.

My last hour is wracked by the recollection of a deed,

Which but for you I should never have been tempted to commit.

"'If you could have been a little more patient,

"'I should never have been tempted to commit.

' "'If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it,

' said I,

"'and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness.

' "'You have a very bad disposition,

' said she,

"'and one for this day I find it impossible to understand.

"'How for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment,

"'and in the tenth break out all fire and violence.

I can never comprehend.

' "'My disposition is not so bad as you think,

' I insisted.

"'I may be passionate,

But not vindictive.

"'Many a time as a little child I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me,

"'and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now.

"'Kiss me,

Aunt.

' "'I approached my cheek to her lips,

But she would not touch it.

"'She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed,

And again demanded water.

"'Love me then,

Or hate me as you will,

' said I at last.

"'You have my full and free forgiveness.

Ask now for God's,

And be at peace.

' "'The nurse now entered,

And Bessie followed.

"'I yet lingered half an hour longer,

Hoping to see some sign of amity,

But Mrs.

Reed gave none.

"'They came to tell us the next morning it was all over.

"'Eliza and I went to look at her.

"'Georgiana,

Who had burst out into loud weeping,

Said she dared not go.

"'There were stretched Sarah Reed's once robust and active frame,

Rigid and still.

"'Her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid.

"'Her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul.

"'A strange and solemn object was that corpse,

Me.

"'I gazed on it with gloom and pain.

"'Nothing soft,

Nothing sweet.

"'Nothing pitying or hopeful or subduing did it inspire.

"'Only a grating anguish for her woes,

Not my losses,

"'and a sombre,

Tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form.

"'Eliza surveyed her parent calmly,

And after a silence of some minutes she observed.

"'With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age.

"'Her life was shortened by trouble.

"'And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant.

"'As it passed away she turned and left the room,

And so did I.

"'Neither of us had dropped a tear.

' "'End of Volume 1'

Reviews

Ah, to the end, the aunt is bitter and unforgiving (and unforgivable!) but at least dropped a little solace for Jane!
Thank you🙏🏽❤️