with my quilt.'
I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her.
After a long silence, she resumed, still whispering-
'I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you
must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We
all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not
painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no
one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married,
and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings.
I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the
world: I should have been continually at fault.'
'But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?'
'I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.'
'Where is God? What is God?'
'My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely
implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count
the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to
Him, reveal Him to me.'
'You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven,
and that our souls can get to it when we die?'
'I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can
resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my
father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me.'
'And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?'
'You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by
the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane.'
Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. 'Where is that
region? Does it exist?' And I clasped my arms closer around Helen; she
seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go;
I lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the
sweetest tone-
'How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a
little; I feel as if I could sleep: but don't leave me, Jane; I like
to have you near me.'
'I'll stay with you, dear Helen: no one shall take me away.'
'Are you warm, darling?'
'Yes.'
'Good-night, Jane.'
'Good-night, Helen.'
She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered.
When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked
up; I was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me
through the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for
leaving my bed; people had something else to think about; no
explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two
afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at
dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen
Burns's shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was-
dead.
Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after
her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble
tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word
'Resurgam.'
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CHAPTER X
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HITHERTO I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant
existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as
many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography: I am
only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess
some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years
almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links
of connection.
When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at
Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its
virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention
on the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by
degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a
high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and
quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water used in
its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations- all
these things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result
mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution.
Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed
largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better
situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and
clothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the
management of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth
and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the
post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties
by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his
office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to
combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion
with uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly
useful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after
its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher;
and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and
importance.
During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy,
because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education
placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a
desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my
teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself
fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first
girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of
teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of
that time I altered.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued
superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best
part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my
continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother,
governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married,
removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy
of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me.
From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone
every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in
some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her
nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed
better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had
given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was
content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a
disciplined and subdued character.
But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between
me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a
post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise
mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my
own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the
half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.
I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only
to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my
reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the
afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned
on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming
process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss
Temple- or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere
I had been breathing in her vicinity- and that now I was left in my
natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions.
It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive
were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me,
but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some
years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems;
now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field
of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who
had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of
life amidst its perils.
I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the
two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts
of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other
objects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I
longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed
prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the
base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I
longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had
travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill
at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought
me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had
all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to
Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit
me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer
world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and
voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and
antipathies- such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it
was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one
afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I
uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly
blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change,
stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space:
'Then,' I cried, half desperate, 'grant me at least a new servitude!'
Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections
till bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me
kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged
effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It
seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea which had last entered
my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise
for my relief.
Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welsh-woman, and till
now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any
other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes
with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my
half-effaced thought instantly revived.
'A new servitude! There is something in that,' I soliloquised
(mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). 'I know there
is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words
as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no
more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere
waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of
fact. Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I
want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is
not the thing feasible? Yes- yes- the end is not so difficult; if I
had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining
it.'
I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly
night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded to
think again with all my might.
'What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces,
under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting
anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to
friends, I suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who
have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own
helpers; and what is their resource?'
I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to
find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt
the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it
worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain
labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain,
noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.
A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required
suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and
naturally to my mind:- 'Those who want situations advertise; you
'How? I know nothing about advertising.'
Replies rose smooth and prompt now:-
'You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it
under a cover directed to the editor of the Herald; you must put it,
the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers
must be addressed to J. E., at the post-office there; you can go and
inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come,
and act accordingly.'
This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my
mind; I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell
asleep.
With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written,
enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it
ran thus:-
'A young lady accustomed to tuition' (had I not been a teacher
two years?) 'is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private
family where the children are under fourteen' (I thought that as I was
barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils
nearer my own age). 'She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a
good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music'
(in those days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of
