impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came;
and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed
a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague
concern for her.
Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist;
she drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long
thus, when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the
sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming
in through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching
figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple.
'I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre,' said she; 'I want you
in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too.'
We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to
thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we
reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked
cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair
on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me
to her side.
'Is it all over?' she asked, looking down at my face. 'Have you
cried your grief away?'
'I am afraid I never shall do that.'
'Why?'
'Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody
else, will now think me wicked.'
'We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child.
Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.'
'Shall I, Miss Temple?'
'You will,' said she, passing her arm round me. 'And now tell me
who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?'
'Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to
her care.'
'Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?'
'No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have
often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that
she would always keep me.'
'Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a
criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence.
You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as
you can. Say whatever your memory suggests as true; but add nothing
and exaggerate nothing.'
I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most
moderate- most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order
to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of
my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued
than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of
Helen's warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused
into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus
restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I
went on that Miss Temple fully believed me.
In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having
come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful
episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure,
in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my
recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed
spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time
in the dark and haunted chamber.
I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence;
she then said-
'I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his
reply agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from
every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now.'
She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well
contented to stand for I derived a child's pleasure from the
contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her
white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark
eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns.
'How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?'
'Not quite so much, I think, ma'am.'
'And the pain in your chest?'
'It is a little better.'
Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then
she returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low.
She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said
cheerfully-
'But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such.'
She rang her bell.
'Barbara,' she said to the servant who answered it, 'I have not yet
had tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies.'
And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the
china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table
near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the
scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was
beginning to be hungry), discerned only a very small portion: Miss
Temple discerned it too.
'Barbara,' said she, 'can you not bring a little more bread and
butter? There is not enough for three.'
Barbara went out: she returned soon-
'Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity.'
Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr.
Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and
iron.
'Oh, very well!' returned Miss Temple; 'we must make it do,
Barbara, I suppose.' And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling,
'Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this
once.'
Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed
before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of
toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel
wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized
seed-cake.
'I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you,' said
she, 'but as there is so little toast, you must have it now,' and
she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.
We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the
least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with
which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished
appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied.
Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire;
we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed
between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be
admitted to hear.
Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state
in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded
deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which
chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her,
by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as
to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder.
The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and
kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all
these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers
within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the
bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but
pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her
eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that
of Miss Temple's- a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash,
nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her
soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot
tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to
hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence? Such was the
characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to me, memorable evening;
her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much
as many live during a protracted existence.
They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times
past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or
guessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores
of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with
French names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax
when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to
recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a
shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen
obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She
had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could
be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to
her heart-
'God bless you, my children!'
Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more
reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her
she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from
her cheek.
On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd:
she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's,
and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told
that to-morrow she should have half a dozen of untidily folded
articles pinned to her shoulder.
'My things were indeed in shameful disorder,' murmured Helen to me,
in a low voice: 'I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.'
Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a
piece of pasteboard the word 'Slattern,' and bound it like a
phylactery round Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and
benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient,
unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss
Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it
off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was
incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and
large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of
her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.
About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss
Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared
that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple,
having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been
made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most
happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every
imputation. The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a
murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions.
Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work
afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I
toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my
memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise
sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in
less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I
learned the first two tenses of the verb Etre, and sketched my first
cottage (whose walls, by the bye, outrivalled in slope those of the
leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to
bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot
roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont
to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of
ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands:
freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins,
Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering
over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wrens' nests
enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I
examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to
translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot
had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved to my
satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.
Well has Solomon said- 'Better is a dinner of herbs where love
is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.'
I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for
Gateshead and its daily luxuries.
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CHAPTER IX
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BUT the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened.
Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter
had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My
wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of
January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of
April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature
froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour
passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be
pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds,
which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed
them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.
Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snowdrops, crocuses, purple
auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons
(half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers
opening by the wayside, under the hedges.
I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the
horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls
of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits
girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a
bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different
had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky
