When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till 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 and 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 and 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. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls after its regeneration for three years: two as pupil, and one as teacher. In both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance. During these three years, my life was uniform but not unhappy. 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. Some months after Helen Burns’s death, Jack sought me and told me that he was leaving. We had not seen much of each other since the lax rules were once again tightened after the typhus epidemic died down and though I was disappointed that I could no longer seek solace in his arms, I was happy for him to leave under the prospects of finding a better position elsewhere than a lowly stable lad. He did sheepishly suggest that perhaps I should wish to run away with him, but I would not have left Lowood with its prospects of an education for anything. In time I almost forgot about Jack completely, throwing myself into my studies instead and rising to be the first girl of the first class. I was then invested with the office of teacher, which I discharged with zeal for a year, but at the end of that time, I altered.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary. However, 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 and with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me. I now 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 and seek it.
I wanted to explore the hilly horizon I could see from my bedroom window. I longed to surmount those blue peaks; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground, exile limits. My vacations had all been spent at school since Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead and 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, notions, voices, faces, phrases, costumes, and preferences was all I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough. I tired of the routine of three years and I desired liberty.
That night I sat up in bed and then I proceeded to think with all my might.
“What do I want?” I asked myself. “A new place, in a new house amongst new faces, under new circumstances. What do people do to get a new place?”
I could not tell and 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 must advertise in the -shire Herald.”
The next day I was up early. I had my advertisement written, enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school and it ran thus: “A young lady accustomed to tuition is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen” (I thought that as I was barely nineteen, 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 accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive). “Address, J.E., Post-office, Lowton, -shire.” This document I took to the post-office that afternoon.
The succeeding week seemed long, but it came to an end at last, and towards the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque track it was, lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale, but that day I thought more of the letters that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water.
“Are there any letters for J.E.?” I asked at the post-office.
The lady peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter—it was for J.E.
“Is there only one?” I demanded.
“There are no more,” said she.
I put it in my pocket and turned my face homeward. I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by eight and it was already half-past seven.
Various duties awaited me on my arrival. I had to sit with the girls during their hour of study, then it was my turn to read prayers, then to see them to bed and afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Finally alone in my room, I took out my letter with the seal initial F and broke it. The contents were brief:
“If J.E., who advertised in the -shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl under ten years of age. The salary is thirty pounds per annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the direction: Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, -shire.” I went to the superintendent immediately.
A fortnight later, my place at Thornfield with Mrs. Fairfax having been secured, I sat in my room with the little possessions I owned packed in a box before me. I was anxious for my new life and could not settle to wait for the carriage that would come to fetch me tomorrow.
“Miss,” said a servant, entering, “a person below wishes to see you.”
“The carrier, no doubt,” I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. I was passing the back-parlour which was half open to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out.
“It’s her, I am sure! I could have told her anywhere!” cried the individual who stopped my progress and took my hand.
I looked and I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, yet still young; very good-looking with black hair and eyes, and lively complexion.
“Well, who is it?” she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half recognised; “you’ve not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?”
In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously. “Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!” that was all I said. Whereat she half laughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little fellow of two years old, in plaid frock and trousers.
“That is my little boy,” said Bessie directly.
“Then you are married, Bessie?”
“Yes, nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman.”
“And you don’t live at Gateshead?”
“I live at the lodge since the old porter has left.”
“Well, and how do the Reeds all get on? Tell me everything about them. But sit down first and Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?” but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.
“You’re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,” continued Mrs. Leaven. “I dare say they’ve not kept you too well at school. Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are, and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.”
“Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?”
“Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her and a young lord fell in love with her. But his relations were against the match so he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away, but they were found out and stopped.”
“And what of John Reed?”
I thought very little about my childhood lover, for I did not remember him in a fond light, but I was intrigued as to his circumstances now.
“Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college and his uncles wanted him to be a barrister and study the law, but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.”
“What does he look like?”
“He is very tall and some people call him a fine-looking young man, but he has such thick lips.”
“And Mrs. Reed?”
“Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she’s not quite easy in her mind. Mr. John’s conduct does not please her—he spends a deal of money.”
“Did she send you here, Bessie?”
“No, indeed, but I have long wanted to see you! When I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I’d just set off, and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach.”
“I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie,” I said this laughing. I perceived that Bessie’s glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration.
“No, Miss Jane, not exactly. You are genteel enough, you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you. You were no beauty as a child.”
I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer. I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import. At nineteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification.
“I dare say you are clever, though,” continued Bessie, by way of solace. “What can you do? Can you play on the piano?”
“A little.”
There was one in the room and Bessie went and opened it. She asked me to sit down and give her a tune so I played a waltz or two, and she was charmed.
“The Miss Reeds could not play as well!” said she exultingly. “I always said you would surpass them in learning. Can you draw?”
“That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece.” It was a landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the superintendent and which she had framed and glazed.
“Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed’s drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it. Have you learnt French?”
“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.”
“And you can work on muslin and canvas?”
“I can.”
“Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be. You will get on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I wanted to ask you, have you ever heard anything from your father’s kinsfolk, the Eyres?”
“Never in my life.”
“Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable? They may be poor, but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you. Missis said you were to school fifty miles off and he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay. He was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father’s brother.”
“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?”
“An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine—the butler did tell me—”
“Madeira?” I suggested.
“Yes, that is it—that is the very word.”
“So he went?”
“Yes, he did not stay many minutes in the house. Missis was very high with him and she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’ My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant.”
“Very likely,” I returned, “or perhaps clerk or agent to a wine-merchant.”
Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was obliged to leave me. I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there and each went her separate way. She set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead and I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.