3 Jane Eyre - Stephanie Poppins

This classic novel by Charlotte Bronte follows the story of Jane, a seemingly plain and simple girl as she battles through life's struggles. Jane has many obstacles in her life - her cruel and abusive Aunt Reed, the grim conditions at Lowood school, her love for Mr Rochester, and Mr Rochester's marriage...

In this episode, Jane comes to the realisation she cannot stay in her cruel aunt’s house, and that she would be better off at school.

Transcript

This is SD Hudson Magic.

Jane Eyre.

Chapter 3.

The next thing I remember is waking up with a feeling as if I had a frightful nightmare and seeing before me a terrible red glare crossed with thick black bars.

I heard voices too speaking with a hollow sound and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water.

Agitation,

Uncertainty and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties.

Earlong I became aware that someone was handling me,

Lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before.

I rested my head against a pillow or an arm and I felt easy.

In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved.

I knew quite well that I was in my own bed and that the red glare was the nursery fire.

It was night.

A candle burnt on the table.

Bessie stood at the bed foot with a basin in her hand and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow leaning over me.

I felt an inexpressible relief.

A soothing conviction of protection and security where I knew that there was a stranger in the room.

An individual not belonging to Gateshead and not related to Mrs.

Reed.

Turning from Bessie,

Though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbott for instance would have been,

I scrutinized the face of the gentleman.

I knew him.

It was Mr.

Lloyd,

An apothecary,

Sometimes called in by Mrs.

Reed when the servants were ailing.

For herself and the children she employed a physician.

Well who am I?

He asked.

I pronounced his name offering him at the same time my hand.

He took it smiling and saying we shall do very well by and by.

Then he laid me down and addressing Bessie charged her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night.

Having given some further directions and imitated that he should call again the next day he departed to my grief.

I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow and as he closed the door after him all the room darkened and my heart again sank.

Inexpressible sadness weighed it down.

Do you feel as if you should sleep miss?

Asked Bessie rather softly.

Scarcely dared I answer her for I feared the next sentence might be rough.

I will try.

Would you like to drink or could you eat anything?

No thank you Bessie.

Then I think I shall go to bed for it's past twelve o'clock but you may call me if you want anything in the night.

Wonderful civility this.

It emboldened me to ask a question.

Bessie what is the matter with me?

Am I ill?

You fell sick I suppose in the red room with crying.

You'll be better soon no doubt.

Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment which was near.

I heard her say Sarah come and sleep with me in the nursery.

I daren't for my life be alone with that poor child tonight.

She might die.

It's such a strange thing she should have that fit.

I wonder if she saw anything.

Mrs.

Was rather too hard.

Sarah came back with her.

They both went to bed.

They were whispering together for half an hour before they fell asleep.

I caught scraps of their conversation from which I was able only to infer the main subject discussed.

Something past her all dressed in white and vanished.

A great black dog behind him.

Three loud raps on the chamber door.

A light in the churchyard just over his grave etc etc.

At last both slept.

The fire in the candle went out.

For me the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness.

Ear,

Eye and mind were alike strained by dread.

Such dread as children only can feel.

No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the Red Room.

It only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day.

Yes Mrs.

Reed to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering.

But I ought to forgive you for you knew not what you did.

While rending my heartstrings you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.

Next day by noon I was up and dressed and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth.

I felt physically weak and broken down but my worst ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind.

A wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears.

No sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek then another followed.

Yet I thought I ought to have been happy for none of the Reeds were there.

They were all gone out in the carriage with MMR.

Abbott too was sewing in another room and Bessie as she moved hither and thither putting away toys and arranging drawers addressed me every now and then a word of unwanted kindness.

This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace.

Accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging.

But in fact my rapt nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe and no pleasure excite them agreeably.

Bessie had been down into the kitchen and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate whose bird of paradise nesting in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds had been wont to stir me in a most enthusiastic sense of admiration.

And which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege.

This precious vessel was now placed on my knee and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it.

Vain favour.

Coming like most other favours long deferred and often wishful.

Too late.

I could not eat the tart and the plumage of the bird,

The tints of the flowers,

Seemed strangely faded.

I put both plate and tart away.

Bessie asked if I would have a book.

The word book acted as a transient stimulus and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library.

This book I had again and again pursued with delight.

I considered it a narrative of facts and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales.

For as to the elves,

Having sought them in vain amongst foxglove leaves and bells,

Under mushrooms and beneath a ground ivy mantling old wall nooks,

I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker and the population more scant.

Whereas Lilliput and Brobdignag,

Being in my creed solid parts of the earth's surface,

I doubted not that I might one day,

By taking a long voyage,

See with my own eyes the little fields,

Houses and trees,

The diminutive people,

The tiny cows,

Sheep and birds of the one realm and the cornfields forest high,

The mighty mastiffs,

The monster cats,

The tower-like men and women of the other.

Yet when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand,

When I turned over its leaves and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had till now never failed to find,

All was eerie and dreary.

The giants were gaunt goblins,

The pygmies malevolent and fearful imps,

Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions.

I closed the book which I dared no longer peruse and put it on the table beside the untasted tart.

Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room and having washed her hands she opened a certain little drawer full of splendid shreds of silk and satin and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll.

Meantime she sang.

Her song was,

In the days when we went gypsy in a long long time ago.

I had often heard the song before and always with lively delight but Bessie had a sweet voice,

At least I thought so,

But now though her voice was still sweet I found in its melody an indescribable sadness.

Sometimes preoccupied with her work she sang the refrain very low,

Very lingerly.

A long time ago came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn.

She passed into another ballad,

This time a really doleful one.

My feet they are asore and my limbs they are weary.

Long is the way and the mountains are wild.

Soon will the twilight close,

Moonless and dreary,

Over the path of the poor orphaned child.

Why did they send me so far and so lonely,

Up where the moors spread and grey walks are piled?

Men are hard-hearted and kind angels only.

What show are the steps of a poor orphaned child?

Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing.

Clouds there are none and dear stars be mild.

God in his mercy protection is showing comfort and hope to the poor orphaned child.

Even should I fall over the broken bridge passing or stray in the marshes by false lights beguiled,

Still with my father with promise and blessing take to his bosom the poor orphaned child.

There is a thought that for strength should avail me,

Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled.

Heaven is a home and a rest will not fail me.

God is a friend to the poor orphaned child.

Come Miss Jane,

Don't cry,

Said Bessie as she finished.

She might as well have said to the fire,

Don't burn,

But how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was prey?

In the course of the morning,

Mr.

Lloyd came again.

Already up,

Said he as he entered the nursery.

Well nurse,

How is she?

Bessie answered that I was doing very well.

Then she ought to look more cheerful.

Come here Miss Jane,

Your name is Jane now,

Is it not?

Yes,

Sir.

Jane Eyre.

Well,

Have you been crying Miss Jane Eyre?

Can you tell me what about?

Have you any pain?

No,

Sir.

Oh,

I dare say she's crying because she couldn't go out with Mrs.

In the carriage,

Interposed Bessie.

Surely not.

Why,

She's 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'm miserable.

Oh,

Fine 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 gray,

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 pan 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 servant's 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's a ghost till after dark.

I saw Mr.

Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.

Ghost?

What,

You are a baby after all.

You're afraid of ghosts.

Of Mr.

Reid's ghost I am.

He died in that room and was laid out there.

Neither Bessie nor anyone else will go into it at night if they can help it.

And it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle.

So cruel that I think I shall never forget it.

Nonsense.

And is that that makes you so miserable?

Are you afraid now in daylight?

No,

But night will come again before long.

And besides,

I am unhappy,

Very unhappy for other things.

What other things?

Can you tell me some of them?

How much I wish to reply fully to this question.

How difficult it was to frame any answer.

Children can feel but they cannot analyse their feelings.

And if the analysis is partially affected in thought,

They know not how to express the result of the process in words.

Fearful,

However,

Of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it,

I,

After a disturbed pause,

Contrive to frame a meagre,

Though as far as it went true,

Response.

For one thing,

I have no father or mother,

Brothers or sisters.

You have a kind aunt and cousins.

Again,

I pause,

Then bunglingly announced.

But John Reid knocked me down and my aunt shut me up in the red room.

Mr.

Lloyd a second time produced his snuffbox.

Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?

Asked he.

Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?

It is not my house,

Sir.

And Abbott says I have less right to be here than a servant.

You can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place.

If I had anywhere else to go,

I should be glad to leave it.

But I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.

Perhaps you may.

Who knows?

Have you any relatives besides Mrs.

Reid?

I think not,

Sir.

None belonging to your father?

I don't know.

I asked Aunt Reid once and she said possibly I might have some poor low relations called air,

But she knew nothing about them.

If you had such would you like to go to them?

I reflected.

Poverty looks grim to grown people.

Still more so to children.

They have not much idea of industrious working,

Respectable poverty.

They think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes,

Scanty food,

Fireless greats,

Rude manners and debasing vices.

Poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.

No,

I should not like to belong to poor people,

Was my reply.

Not even if they were kind to you.

I shook my head.

I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind.

And then to learn to speak like them,

To adopt their manners,

To be uneducated,

To grow up like one of the poor women I sometimes saw nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead.

No,

I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste.

But are your relatives so very poor?

Are they working people?

I cannot tell.

Aunt Reed says if I have any they must be a beggarly set.

I should not like to go a-begging.

Would you like to go to school?

Again I reflected.

I scarcely knew what school was.

Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks,

Wore backboards and were expected to be exceedingly gentle and precise.

John Reed hated his school and abused his master.

But John Reed's tastes were no role for mine and if Bessie's accounts of school discipline,

Gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead,

Were somewhat appalling.

Her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were,

I thought,

Equally attractive.

She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed,

Of songs they could sing and pieces they could play,

Of purses they could net,

Of French books they could translate,

Till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened.

Besides,

School would be a complete change.

It implied a long journey,

An entire separation from Gateshead,

An entrance into a new life.

I should indeed like to go to school,

Was the audible conclusion of my musings.

Well,

Well,

Who knows what might happen,

Said Mr.

Lloyd as he got up.

The child ought to have a change of air and scene,

He added,

Speaking to himself.

Nerves not in a good state.

Bessie now returned.

At the same moment,

The carriage was heard rolling up the gravel walk.

Is that your mistress,

Nurse?

Asked Mr.

Lloyd.

I should like to speak to her before I go.

Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast room and led the way out.

In the interview which followed between him and Mrs.

Reed,

I presume from after occurrences,

That the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school.

And the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted.

For as Abbott said in discussing the subject with Bessie,

When both sat sewing in the nursery one night after I was in bed,

And as they thought asleep,

Mrs.

Was,

She dare say,

Glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome,

Ill-conditioned child,

Who always looked as if she were watching everybody and scheming plots underhand.

Abbott,

I think,

Gave me credit for being a sort of infantine guy fawkes.

On that same occasion,

I learned for the first time,

From Miss Abbott's communication to Bessie,

That my father had been a poor clergyman,

That my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends,

Who considered the match beneath her,

That my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience,

He cut her off without a shilling,

That after my mother and father had been married a year,

The latter caught the typhus fever whilst visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated,

And where the disease was then prevalent,

That my mother took the infection from him,

And both died within a month of each other.

Bessie,

When she heard this narrative,

Sighed and said,

Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied too,

Abbott.

Yes,

Responded Abbott,

If she were a nice pretty child,

One might compassionate her forlornness,

But one really can't care for such a little toad as that.

Not a great deal,

To be sure,

Agreed Bessie.

At any rate,

A beauty like Miss Georgiana will be more moving in the same condition.

Yes,

I dote on Miss Georgiana,

Cried the fervent Abbott,

Little darling with her long curls and her blue eyes,

And such a sweet colour as she has,

Just as if she was painted.

Bessie,

I could fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper.

So could I,

With a roast onion.

Come on then,

We'll go down.

And they went.

Reviews

Oh, a kind apothecary! Your singing voice is hauntingly beautiful, that tune may go thru the day with me💕🥰