บทที่ บทที่ 7 · My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age

. 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.

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.

“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.