Jane Eyre | Page 9

they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their
conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the
main subject discussed.
"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished" -- "A great
black dog behind him" -- "Three loud raps on the chamber door" -- "A
light in the churchyard just over his grave," &c. &c.
At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches
of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by dread:
such dread as children only can feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the
red-room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the
reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful
pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not
what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were
only uprooting my bad propensities.
Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by
the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my
worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a
wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I
wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I

thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there,
they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was
sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither,
putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now
and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things should have
been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of
ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked
nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no
pleasure excite them agreeably.
Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a
tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise,
nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir
in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had
often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it
more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a
privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was
cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour!
coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too
late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the
flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and tart away. Bessie
asked if I would have a book: the word BOOK acted as a transient
stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library.
This book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a
narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than
what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in
vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath
the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my
mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some
savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the
population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my
creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one
day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields,
houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and
birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty
mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other.
Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand -- when I

turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I
had, till now, never failed to find -- all was eerie and dreary; the giants
were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a
most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed
the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside
the untasted tart.
Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having
washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid
shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for
Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was -
"In the days when we went gipsying, A long time ago."
I had often heard