Five o’clock struck, school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend from my pedestal. It was deep dusk and I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve 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 and nothing sustained me. 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 since that very morning I had reached the head of my class and 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. Yet now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on. Could I ever rise again?
“Never,” I thought, and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached. I started up and again Helen Burns was near me. The fading fires just showed her coming up the long, vacant room and 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 and 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. I was the first who spoke.
“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?”
“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a great and admired man. He is little liked here and he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, 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.”
I did not care; Helen’s words merely slid off me, sorrowful as I was. I could only think of the cold, loveless life I had left and how I did not want it to ever return.
“If others don’t love me I would rather die than live,” I sobbed. “To gain some real affection 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.”
Perhaps I did. My waking hours were consumed with my deep ache for my dark-eyed lover. I craved the affection he symbolised in my mind and relished the hot rush of wanting that forever swept through me as he haunted my thoughts and dreams. I suppose I had been vaguely aware for some time that I thought about him a little too much, but such lonely hearts as that belonging to my childhood cannot be condemned for wanting such a human need as love. Besides, was it not Helen Burns who had told me that when she was whipped she thought of other things? I blushed at the memory. Perhaps those things that occupied her mind were good and homely, perhaps she thought of the family she had once had and not the rough hand of a lover.
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 Miss Temple entered.
“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 followed the superintendent through some intricate passages and up a staircase before we reached her apartment, which 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. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us. 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 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.
When I had finished, Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence. She then said, “I know something of the apothecary Mr. Lloyd and I shall write to him. If his reply agrees with the statement you have just given me—of your fit in the red-room—you shall be publicly cleared from every imputation. However to me, Jane, you are clear now.”
She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side, she proceeded to address Helen Burns.
“How are you tonight, 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, “You two are my visitors tonight and 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!
“Barbara,” said Miss Temple, “can you not bring a little more bread and butter? There is not enough for three.”
Barbara went out and she returned soon, “Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity.”
Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper and 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 and we sat one on each side of her. Now a conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear. 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; and they spoke of books, oh how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! 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. She had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime and 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 and she let her go more reluctantly. It was Helen her eye followed to the door and it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh and for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.
On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd examining drawers and she had just pulled out Helen Burns’s 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, and intelligent forehead. She wore it till evening, patient and 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 and 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 and resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty. In a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class and in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses of the verb étre, 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 picture my dark-eyed lover, 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. 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. Thus my young desire was extinguished with the lure of knowledge and in this satisfied state, I fell sweetly asleep.