by Rigel, LK
“I’m glad to leave Gateshead Righteous,” I said. “But I’ll never forget you, Bessie. You and Dr. Lloyd were the only people ever kind to me in my life.”
“We’ll see you home again when you’ve finished your studies, I’m sure.”
“I’ll never go back to Gateshead!” I said, more violently than I meant to. “I’m going to be a teacher.”
“Oh, Miss Jane.”
I softened my voice. “Don’t cry, Bessie, please. Be happy for me.”
“Child, you would throw away comfort and security for a hard and lonely life.”
Comfort and security? No, prison! I thought.
“I’m lonely now, Bessie. I’m tired of not belonging. I’m no servant, but Abbot was right; I’m no mistress. At Gateshead I’m nothing. A charity case. I can’t bear it.”
She recoiled at the words charity case. We turned north off Gateshead Road onto Keystone Highway. It was quiet in the carriage until the blast of a train whistle sounded through the air. We were nearing Gateshead Halt. My heart soared. To my mind, the whistle shouted my triumph to high heaven.
Bessie dug my ticket out of her bag and handed it to the ticket master. A porter took my trunk, and we followed him through the train to my compartment. When he left us, Bessie let out a great sob and hugged me fiercely.
“Oh, Miss Jane. I’ve raised you from an infant. I feel like I’m losing my own dear girl.”
Right. Bessie was as likely as any to slap me for a clever remark or put me in the corner to contemplate my faults. And yet…she was the only one who ever seemed sorry to do it. I kissed her cheek and we said goodbye.
She stayed on the platform as the train pulled away, and as we waved to each other she grew smaller and smaller. Then the train rounded the bend and she was gone.
It was full dawn now. The trees showed distinctly against the brightening sky, and a storm approached from the east. The porter came by with a breakfast trolley and let me choose anything I liked. There was coffee, scrambled eggs with cheese, bacon, potatoes and onions, and toast. It all smelled wonderful, but I was too excited to eat.
“How long does it take to get to Lowood?” I said.
“Three to four hours to Lowood Halt—if the tracks are clear and stops aren’t delayed. Then another ten miles to the institution by carriage.” He lowered a tray on the seat across from me and left a small pot of coffee and some toast and marmalade. “You might want something.”
I chewed on half a piece of toast and watched the world go by. With the train’s subtle rocking I relaxed, shedding the fitful excitement which had kept me awake all night. We passed Lake Bellefleur, the farthest I’d ever been from Gateshead mansion. We stopped for half an hour in a real town with tall buildings lit up inside and out, and through the window I watched the workmen load coal onto the train.
The train continued on, and soon I yawned and lifted the dividers on the bench seat so I could lie down and close my eyes, just for a few minutes.
“Jane Eyre!” someone called out in my dream. “Jane Eyre for Lowood!”
But it wasn’t a dream. The train was stopped. Someone had truly called for me. “I’m here!” I cried, afraid he’d leave me.
Lowood Halt had no ticket house. It was no more than a rectangular platform with train tracks on one side and a cobblestone road on the other. At one end an iron bench sat beneath a three-sided rain shelter. Beyond the platform waited a one-horse cart.
“Well?” A man walked by with my trunk. A boy, really, not much older than John Reed. “Get in.”
I climbed into the back of the cart beside my trunk on the flat bed. The driver jumped up to his bench and urged his horse on. The sun was low in the west, hidden by clouds. What sights had I missed, sleeping the day away? My stomach growled. I wished I’d eaten more than two bites of toast.
“Go a little faster, please,” I told the driver. “I don’t want to miss supper at Lowood.”
He looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. I prepared for an insult, but his face changed. He had the same look as John Reed did when I was tied to the chair in the Red Room.
I instinctively clutched my cloak at my throat. He grinned—not nicely—and turned back to his horse. “Git, Daisy,” he said with a chuckle. “Walk along sprightly there now. Madam don’t want to miss her supper.”
We traveled miles and miles through remote foothill country. Occasionally we’d pass a private lane, and I might spot a grand house set up the hill well away from the road. The clouds followed us, and a few sprinkles came down. We stopped at an iron gate in a stone fence at a turnaround where the cobblestone road ended. Without ceremony the driver dropped my trunk at the gate then pushed a button recessed in the wall.
I climbed out of the cart, stiff from the jolting ride. Beyond the gate, a long drive led to a cottage, and behind the cottage two mansions faced each other, each as big as Gateshead.
“How marvelous!” I stuck my head through the gate’s bars, hardly believing my eyes. At the end of the drive near the cottage was a powered limousine automobile.
My Uncle Reed had owned an automobile, though not one so large. I never saw it—Mrs. Reed sold it after he died. But John Reed had its picture. I believe the only reason he wanted Anointed status was for the privilege of owning and driving such a vehicle.
“Droppin’ off.” The cart driver spoke to the wall. “I got one Jane Eyre here for you.”
“Why do we stop here?” I said. “The drive is plenty wide enough for the cart.” I blinked away a single fat drop of rain.
“No man is allowed past this point.” He absently pulled his hat brim forward to shield his eyes from the rain. “Not if he ain’t a choker.”
I smiled inwardly. How it would irritate John Reed to hear this driver of low rank using his same slang.
The driver walked over to me and leaned close, his moist warm breath on my neck. “I could come to you the back way, if it gives you pleasure.”
I wanted to slap him, though he was twice my size. We were interrupted by the sound of locks turning, and the gate began to open of its own accord, a wonderful remote mechanical trick.
The driver uttered a nasty laugh and jumped into his cart. “Git, Daisy,” he said to his horse. “You don’t want to miss your supper.”
From somewhere near the gate, a disembodied female voice said, ‘Enter, Jane Eyre!”
« Chapter 6 »
A Bishop’s Charity
Dusk descended suddenly as the sun dipped behind the trees. In the intensifying rain, I ran up the drive with my trunk. I couldn’t resist looking at the limousine, but its windows were darkly tinted and covered with beading raindrops. I couldn’t see inside. While I debated which building to enter, the voice from the gate again called out to me.
“Come, Jane Eyre.”
This time the voice was contained within a human being, a stout dark-haired woman. She beckoned to me from the cottage door. I followed her inside to a small parlor where there was a fire. “Take off your hat and cloak and wait here.”
I draped my cloak over my trunk along with my hat and scarf. While removing my gloves a strange, unnatural sound startled me. It had to be the limousine’s engine. I ran to the window and pulled back the curtain to see the vehicle drive away, red lamps glowing.
The woman returned with a tray and left it on a small table set for two people near the fireplace. The smell of stew and fresh bread made my stomach growl. I dearly hoped I was intended to be one of the two, but she left the room without speaking to me.
The door reopened, and in came a woman of maybe thirty with thick dark hair pulled back in a French braid. An old-fashioned light brown frock was draped over her arm as well as a white pinafore-like apron. She set aside the clothes and greeted me.
“Hello, Jane. What a pretty dress.” Her smile was a little sad, as if she felt pity for me. “I’m Miss Temple, headmistress of Lowood. You’ve arrived too late to eat with the other girls, so you’d better share with me.”
We sat down together, and I put my napkin over my lap. As she cut a piece of bread for me, I set her mind at ease. “I’m very glad to have come to Lowood. I never thought I’d be allowed to go to school.”
“Why do you want to go to school, Jane?” Miss Temple ladled out a lamb stew with potatoes and carrots and leeks and a wonderful spice I didn’t recognize. There was butter and honey for the bread and a big glass of milk.
There was no point in telling her how unhappy I was at Gateshead, about the Red Room, John Reed’s bullying, that I couldn’t bear to live there another day. Bishop Brocklehurst must have already told the people at Lowood I was an ungrateful child, so why would she believe me? My complaints would only reinforce such an indictment.
“I want to be a teacher,” I said. “I want to be an independent woman.”
Miss Temple’s eyes twinkled a little. “That’s an achievable goal. If you study hard and pass your exams, you could become a licensed governess.”
“Oh.” I stared at my bowl. That’s not what I meant. Not a governess. The opposite of independence. Georgiana and Eliza had been horrid to our governess. Mrs. Reed never would defend the poor woman.
“Or you might stay on here,” Miss Temple added. “Many of Lowood’s teachers are former pupils. For instance, Miss Miller who greeted you came to Lowood when she was eleven years old.”
“That’s exactly what I would like, Miss Temple.”
Her smile, still tinged with sadness, faded. “How old are you, Jane?”
“Fourteen,” I answered—with a start. I had forgotten it was my birthday.
I glanced at the lovely slouch hat and scarf on my trunk. Bessie must have made them as a birthday present. If so, she’d likely purchased the yarn from her own savings.
My heart ached. I would miss Bessie. I regretted not being kinder to her, and it was a novel sensation. I always felt so abused and downtrodden, so often falsely accused of wickedness—it never occurred to me I might have actual faults. I vowed to be a better person from then on.
I was ravenous, and everything tasted like heaven, but I didn’t get to finish my meal for at that point we were interrupted by another person.
“Bishop Brocklehurst. I thought you’d left, sir.” Miss Temple rose hurriedly to her feet, and I followed her lead.
“I had.”
At the sight of my nemesis my spirits sank. His expression was as sour as I remembered. I knew his opinion of me, and I didn’t want him to share it with Miss Temple.
“I saw the cart boy on the road. He told me he’d just delivered this girl.” He turned his eye on me.
Against my will, I shivered.
“I spoke with your benefactor not three hours ago, Jane Eyre. I was afraid of this.” He rubbed my velvet collar between his fingers. “Mrs. Reed no doubt meant a kindness, outfitting you thusly. It’s no kindness to encourage a girl to put herself above her station. Is that not so, Miss Temple?”
“Most certainly, bishop.” Miss Temple answered out of duty, but not with the bishop’s fervor. “A girl or any person.”
“Remove the dress.”
I gasped, and my hand flew to my throat. I must have heard him incorrectly, for Miss Temple showed no sign of anything being out of order.
“You have a uniform,” he said to her.
“Yes, bishop.” Miss Temple retrieved the dress and pinafore she’d laid aside.
“Take off that dress, Jane Eyre. I’ll return it to Mrs. Reed.”
“Sir, perhaps she could change in my—”
“Miss Temple, I have no time for false modesty or girlish pride. Jane Eyre, do as I say. You were there when your good aunt pleaded with me to teach you humility. From the pride you now take in material frippery, I can see she was right.”
My face went hot with embarrassment and fury. How dare he! My fingers trembled as I unfastened the top button at my collar. Miss Temple stared at her hands, her expression indecipherable.
I faltered at the second button, and the bishop brushed my hands away and began to do the work for me. I trembled with rage as he proceeded to undress me—rage and some fear, I admit. He fumbled with the buttons at my sternum, and the knuckles of his hands pressed against my breasts. When he’d opened the garment past my waist, he pushed it back over my shoulders. His gaze lingered at the swell of my breasts at the top of my chemise. For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to touch me.
He stepped away. “You may complete the task. Those boots too. Far too unsuitable.” He addressed Miss Temple. “The box?”
I handed Bishop Brocklehurst my dress and quickly bent down to unlace my boots. Miss Temple dropped a box of secondhand shoes at my feet. I kept my head down to hide my tears. I’d give him no satisfaction. I tossed my boots in Brocklehurst’s direction and turned away toward the fire, surreptitiously wiping my eyes.
Miss Temple was at me in a flash with the uniform. She gently wrapped it around me and found the hole for its inset belt. “It’s a little big now, Jane,” she murmured, “but you’ll grow into it.”
There were no buttons, no hooks, not even a zipper. The dress was made for no one in particular, designed to wrap and tie in order to expand or contract to a wearer’s growing frame. Miss Temple helped me with the pinafore. It felt like she was a dresser in a theater, and I’d been cast the part of a ten-year-old child in a play.
I was the little princess who’d lost everything—except I’d had no father, no protector, to begin with.
Bishop Brocklehurst added my lovely hat and scarf to his plunder. When he’d gone for good, Miss Temple called for Miss Miller and instructed her to show me to my bed in a dormitory in one of the large buildings.
I don’t remember if the wind howled through the trees that night or the rain raged against the dormitory’s window pane. I don’t remember if I was awakened several times by girls crying softly in their beds. I don’t remember if my teeth chattered with cold because my blanket was so thin. All those details are part of the memory mosaic contained in my brain, labeled Lowood. None set the first night apart from any night I spent there.
But I will never forget Bishop Brocklehurst’s assault on me, an experience distinct and fixed. He had risen to the top of my list. I hated him then more than I hated Mrs. Reed and more even than John Reed. I believed it was impossible to hate him more.
I was wrong.
« Chapter 7 »
Helen
Lowood was electrified in ways that made me loathe the invention. When the Great Secession restored a slower, simpler life more suited to human dignity, someone forgot to tell Lowood’s administrators. If electricity was used like this in the heathen old country, it’s no wonder the old country cracked up.
A caustic unceasing bell drove me from sleep, and the dormitory glared with unnatural fluorescent light. Other girls were out of bed, putting on uniforms like the one given me the night before. The nightmarish bell stopped when I was halfway through tying on my pinafore, but it echoed on in my brain.
It was bitter cold. I washed at the end of a line of six girls and held out my hands for inspection. The bell rang us down to the dining hall where we sat, ranked according to age, on long hardwood benches at tables arranged in two rows with a wide aisle between the rows.
Breakfast came out in two big pots which the servers placed on a high bench before the head table. The teachers there immediately wrinkled their noses, and their hands flew to faces.
“Disgusting!”
“The porridge is burnt again!”
“Shhh!”
We said grace, a variation of the prayer said at Gateshead:
Bless, O Lord, this food to our bodies,
And make us grateful to thy bounty.
Keep us ever fit for your service,
And mindful of the needs of others.
The stench of the burnt porridge reached my nostrils and wiped out all thought of the needs of others. At the end of the prayer, one of the older girls stood and recited the eleventh psalm.
I supp
ressed a smile and looked down at my hands. I told Bishop Brocklehurst I didn’t like the psalms, but it didn’t mean I didn’t know them. Psalm 11 was my nemesis. It had made me bitter and turned me away from God. I still loved Jesus, but in my book God could suck eggs.
The girl finished:
“Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone,
and an horrible tempest:
This shall be the portion of their cup.
For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness;
His countenance doth behold the upright.”
Right. Not at Gateshead. There the Lord rewarded wicked John Reed on a daily basis, and not with snares and brimstone.
A young girl from another table stood to recite Psalm 12.
“We hear ten psalms every morning,” the girl beside me whispered in a serious, no-nonsense manner. Like all of us, her hair was hidden behind a white scarf tied in a knot at the nape of her neck, but a few red curls had escaped. “They’ll give you one to learn.”
“Burns!” A teacher charged through the tables toward us. She was about the age of Miss Miller, thin and hard-looking, with round wire-rimmed glasses and a furrow between her eyes.
The girl stood up and bent her head forward. She clasped her hands behind her back, as if she was used to some solemn ritual about to be carried out.
The teacher wore the same uniform as the other teachers, a plain black Jersey dress, calf-length, with three-quarter-length sleeves. A white lace collar draped over her shoulders came down in two points over her breasts. She raised an instrument above her head that looked like John Reed’s riding crop and brought it down over the girl’s shoulders.
Outrageous! I started to protest, but the girl’s sharp look stopped me.
“Return to your seat, Burns,” the teacher said.
“Thank you, Miss Scatcherd,” the girl said.
“And maintain silence.”
Miss Scatcherd returned to her place at the head of the teachers’ table, and Burns—if that was her name—returned silently to her seat beside me. The sting of the injustice was maddening. She’d only meant to be nice.
