CHAPTER VII

My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it
comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new
rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse
than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles.

During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their
melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden
walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour
every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the
severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our
ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I
remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every
evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw,
and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was
distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely
sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of
nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils:
whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace
the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two
claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after
relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have
swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me
by the exigency of hunger.

Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to
Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived
at church colder: during the morning service we became almost paralysed. It was
too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the
same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round
between the services.

At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road,
where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the
north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.

I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line,
her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and
encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march
forward, as she said, “like stalwart soldiers.” The other teachers, poor
things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of
cheering others.

How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back! But,
to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in the schoolroom was
immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the
younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their
pinafores.

A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread—a
whole, instead of a half, slice—with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of
butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath
to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast
for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.

The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and
the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a
long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her
weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the
part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with
sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form,
and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the
centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was
finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap;
they were then propped up with the monitors’ high stools.

I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that
gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my
arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon: his
absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for
dreading his coming: but come he did at last.

One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a
slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in
abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing: I recognised
almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the
school, teachers included, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to
look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride
measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had
risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from
the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of
architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a
surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.
en masse
I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I
remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition,
&c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple and the
teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of
this promise,—I had been looking out daily for the “Coming Man,” whose
information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad
child for ever: now there he was.

He stood at Miss Temple’s side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt
he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful
anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of
repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite
at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me
from immediate apprehension.

“I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck me
that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the
needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of
the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she
is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if
they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma’am! I wish
the woollen stockings were better looked to!—when I was here last, I went into
the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a
quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the
holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time.”

He paused.

“Your directions shall be attended to, sir,” said Miss Temple.

“And, ma’am,” he continued, “the laundress tells me some of the girls have two
clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them to one.”

“I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine Johnstone
were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave
them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion.”

Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.

“Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too
often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, in settling
accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese,
has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this?
I looked over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who
introduced this innovation? and by what authority?”

“I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir,” replied Miss Temple: “the
breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it; and I
dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time.”

“Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these
girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to
render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental
disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under
or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by
replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the
body and obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the
spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude
under the temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would not be
mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of
referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of
martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His
disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God; to His divine consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake,
happy are ye.’ Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt
porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies,
but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!”

Mr. Brocklehurst again paused—perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss Temple had
looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight
before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming
also the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as
if it would have required a sculptor’s chisel to open it, and her brow settled
gradually into petrified severity.

Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind his
back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as
if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he
said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used—

“Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—what is that girl with curled hair? Red
hair, ma’am, curled—curled all over?” And extending his cane he pointed to the
awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
what
“It is Julia Severn,” replied Miss Temple, very quietly.

“Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in
defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the
world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable establishment—as to wear her
hair one mass of curls?”

“Julia’s hair curls naturally,” returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.

“Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be
the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again and again intimated
that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple,
that girl’s hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and
I see others who have far too much of the excrescence—that tall girl, tell her
to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the
wall.”

Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away the
involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and when the
first class could take in what was required of them, they obeyed. Leaning a
little back on my bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they
commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them
too; he would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of
the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference than he
imagined.

He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then
pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom—

“All those top-knots must be cut off.”

Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.

“Madam,” he pursued, “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this
world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach
them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided
hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string
of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I
repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of—”

Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now
entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have heard his
lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs.
The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey
beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the
brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately
curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with
ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls.

These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the Misses
Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of the room. It seems
they had come in the carriage with their reverend relative, and had been
conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room upstairs, while he transacted
business with the housekeeper, questioned the laundress, and lectured the
superintendent. They now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to
Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of
the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters
called off and enchanted my attention.

Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple,
I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my personal
safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude observation.
To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with
my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have
escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my
hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I
knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of
slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came.

“A careless girl!” said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after—“It is the new
pupil, I perceive.” And before I could draw breath, “I must not forget I have a
word to say respecting her.” Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! “Let the
child who broke her slate come forward!”

Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two great
girls who sat on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me towards the
dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I
caught her whispered counsel—

“Don’t be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished.”

The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.

“Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite,” thought I; and an
impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the
conviction. I was no Helen Burns.

“Fetch that stool,” said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from
which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.

“Place the child upon it.”

And I was placed there, by whom I don’t know: I was in no condition to note
particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr.
Brocklehurst’s nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot
orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and
waved below me.

Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.

“Ladies,” said he, turning to his family, “Miss Temple, teachers, and children,
you all see this girl?”

Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against
my scorched skin.

“You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of
childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to all of
us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. Who would think
that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I
grieve to say, is the case.”

A pause—in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the
Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly
sustained.

“My dear children,” pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, “this is a
sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl,
who might be one of God’s own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the
true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard
against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company,
exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers,
you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words,
scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such
salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this
child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who
says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut—this girl is—a liar!”

Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect
possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce their
pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady
swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones whispered, “How shocking!”

Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.

“This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who
adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose
kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so
dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from
her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their
purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their
diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg
of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.”

With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his
surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and
then all the great people sailed in state from the room. Turning at the door,
my judge said—

“Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her
during the remainder of the day.”

There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of
standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to
general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were, no language can
describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my
throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a
strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent
through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had
passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the
rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen
Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for
the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she
again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the
effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments,
her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an
angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge;”
scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of
bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it
out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of
the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute
defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb.

CHAPTER VIII

Ere the half-hour ended, five o’clock struck; school was dismissed, and all
were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it was deep
dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I
had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so
overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the
ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to
myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be
so good, and to do so much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect
and win affection. Already I had made visible progress: that very morning I had
reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss Temple
had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to let me
learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement two months longer: and
then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; treated as an equal by those of
my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again crushed and trodden
on; and could I ever rise more?

“Never,” I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this wish
in broken accents, some one approached: I started up—again Helen Burns was near
me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long, vacant room; she
brought my coffee and bread.

“Come, eat something,” she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a
drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. Helen regarded
me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried
hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced
her knees with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she
remained silent as an Indian. I was the first who spoke—

“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?”

“Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called
so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.”

“But what have I to do with millions? The eighty I know despise me.”

“Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or
dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.”

“How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?”

“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: he is
little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated
you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert,
all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they
dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but
friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing
well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their
temporary suppression. Besides, Jane”—she paused.

“Well, Helen?” said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently
to warm them, and went on—

“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience
approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

“No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others
don’t love me I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be solitary and
hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple,
or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my
arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and
let it dash its hoof at my chest—”

“Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too
impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put
life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or
than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men,
there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us,
for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to
guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all
sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence
(if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has
weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a
sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only
the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then,
should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and
death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory?”

I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted there
was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the 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 is 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 wren’s 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.