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Recording by Elizabeth Klett Jane Eyre by Charlotte BRONTË Chapter Three

The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had 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.

Ere long, I became aware that some one 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 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, when 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 Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised 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 intimates 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 is 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 to-night: she might die; it's such a strange

thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything.

Missis 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 too distinctly to infer the main subject discussed.

"Something passed 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 and the candle went out.

For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly

wakefulness; 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 heart-strings, 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 worse

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 than 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 their mama.

Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither,

putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now

and then a word of unwonted 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 racked 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,

nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in

me 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 wished

for, 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 perused 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 among foxglove

leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the 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 corn-fields 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 pigmies 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 gipsying, A long time ago."

I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for

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

lingeringly; "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 sore, 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 orphan child.

Why did they send me so far and so lonely, Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are

piled?

Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.

Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam

mild, God, in His mercy, protection is showing,

Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,

Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,

Take to His bosom the poor orphan 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 orphan 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 a prey?

In the course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again.

"What, 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, is it not?"