Jane Slayre (6 page)

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was he harvesting? Still, it was a school and a chance to get away from the Reeds and learn something of the world.

"I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the
Child's Guide.
Read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An account of the awfully sudden death of Mary, a naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit."

With these words Mr. Bokorhurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed.

Mrs. Reed and I were left alone. I thought she might be in a hurry to return to her bed, but the heavy drapes were drawn and I suppose she was not ready to go back to sleep with the excitement of arranging my permanent departure from Gateshead Hall. She picked up her sewing. I watched her. Some minutes passed in silence.

Mrs. Reed was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese. She had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much developed and solid. Her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular. Her skin was pale, if a little grey, and her hair nearly flaxen. Under her light eyebrows glimmered ink-black eyes, as hard in expression as they were inhumanly opaque. Her menacing expression no doubt helped her to remain an exact, clever manager. Almost no one would dare thwart her. Her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control. Her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn. She dressed well and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire.

I turned my attention from her to the tract I still held in my hand outlining the sudden death of the liar, to which narrative my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Bokorhurst, the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind. I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me.

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As if she could read my thoughts, Mrs. Reed looked up from her work. Her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements.

"Go out of the room. Return to the nursery." My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I went to the door and came back again. I walked to the window, across the room, fingered the drapes, and returned to stand in front of Mrs. Reed.

"I am not deceitful. If I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you. I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed, and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."

Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive. Her eye of ice continued to dwell on mine. "What more have you to say?"

"I am glad you are no true relation of mine. I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown-up, and if anyone asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty."

"How dare you affirm that, Jane Slayre?"

"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You have no soul, no feelings, so how can you guess what I endure because of you? I have done long enough without one bit of love or kindness. To my dying day, I shall remember how you thrust me into the red room and locked me up there, bleeding and in agony over a punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me and bit my neck to drink my blood. My common blood! I will tell anybody who asks me questions this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, monstrous, a murderess! Above all,
you
are deceitful!" And now, my climactic revelation, I pulled the stake out of my skirts. I didn't go anywhere without one anymore. "And if you should let your child near to attack me again, I'll run him through! Right through the heart. Phut!"

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I stabbed the air in front of Mrs. Reed's face, making her eyes widen with shock, or perhaps fright?

Ere I had finished this demonstration, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. Mrs. Reed trembled. Her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, even twisting her face as if she would cry.

"Jane, put that away! What is the matter with you? You are suffering under a mistaken notion, surely. We do not act as monsters, but for our own survival. You're having delusions, perhaps? Would you like to drink some water?"

"No, Mrs. Reed."

"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be your friend."

"Friend? When you told Mr. Bokorhurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition? I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done."

"You mean with your punishments, surely? Jane, you don't understand these things. Children must be corrected for their faults."

"Deceit is not
my
fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.

"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow. Now return to the nursery--there's a dear--and lie down a little."

"I am not your dear. I cannot lie down. Send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here."

"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.

I was left there alone, winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained. I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Bokorhurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elated, but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulse. I had actually stood my ground. I had threatened her beloved

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boy's precious existence should he cross my path again, and I felt full ready to act on my own behalf as necessary.

Something of vengeance, of violence, I had for the first time tasted. As aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy, burning in my veins, intoxicating. I could not sit still. I went to the breakfast room and opened the drapes and the glass door. The frost reigned unbroken by sun or breeze through the grounds, a fairyland painted in white. It looked so pure, so cleansing, as if nothing bad had ever touched it or crawled under soil to roots. I wanted to be a part of that fresh, white scene.

I stepped out. I breathed deep and let the frigid air fill my lungs, needles piercing, pricking me back to life. I walked along, delighting in the silent trees, the falling fir cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds into heaps and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. Snowflakes fell in intervals to settle on the hard path.

"Miss Jane! Where are you? Come to lunch! You naughty little thing!" she said, catching up to me. "Why don't you come when you are called?"

I knew well enough it was Bessie, but I could not force my feet to move, as if I had become part of the frozen scene. Her presence did not break the enchanted mood. When she drew near, I threw my arms around her. "Come, Bessie, don't scold."

"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said as she looked down at me, "a little roving, solitary thing. And you are going to school, I suppose? And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?"

"What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me."

"Because you're such a queer, shy little thing. You should be bolder."

"Ha!" I laughed. She clearly had not heard from Mrs. Reed. "I don't think that should be a problem now."

"Nonsense! I will worry when you are at school, no Bessie to look after you. But you are rather put-upon here, that's certain. My

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mother said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one of her own to be in your place. Now, come in, and I've some good news for you."

"What could be better than the beauty of this day, Bessie?"

"Child! I believe you've been out too long. Perhaps your brain is freezing. We shall go in. Missus and the young ladies and Master John will be in bed all afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll ask cook to bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers, for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missus intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and I will let you choose what toys you like to take with you."

That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony. In the evening, Bessie stayed with me quite late instead of running off to her duties with the Reeds. She told me some of her most enchanting stories and sang me some of her sweetest songs. My life had improved tremendously at Gateshead just as I was about to leave it for the great unknown.

CHAPTER 5

FIVE O'CLOCK HAD HARDLY struck on the morning of the nineteenth of January when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and nearly dressed. I was to leave Gateshead that day by the 6:00 a.m. coach. Bessie was the only person yet risen. She had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now made my breakfast. I was not hungry, but Bessie pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread. In the end, she wrapped some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag, then helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet and we left the nursery.

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As we passed Mrs. Reed's bedroom, Bessie said, "Will you go in and bid Missus good-bye? She hasn't been settled long. She may still be awake."

"I won't take that chance. She came to my room last night when you were gone down to supper and said I need not disturb her or my cousins in the morning. She told me to remember that she had always been my best friend, and to speak well of her and be grateful to her accordingly."

"What did you say, miss?"

"Nothing. I covered my face with the bedclothes and turned from her to the wall."

"That was wrong, Miss Jane."

"It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missus has not been my friend."

"Miss Jane, don't say so! They live differently from us, to be sure, but that's in their very nature. What seems odd or cruel to others makes sense to those who come to understand."

"I'll never understand. Their very existence is in conflict with nature. Good-bye to Gateshead!" cried I, as we passed through the hall and went out the front door.

The moon was set, and it was dark. Bessie carried a lantern. Raw and chill was the winter morning. My teeth chattered as I hastened down the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge. When we reached it, we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire. My trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach. I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.

"Is she going by herself?" asked the porter's wife.

"Yes."

"And how far is it?"

"Fifty miles."

"What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far alone."

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Trust? I did not say that she had little reason to trust me, nor did she. Her need to be rid of me exceeded her interest in her protection from what I might say out in the world. She certainly had no concern for my fate. Once I left her gates, she would most likely breathe a sigh of relief. I had no doubt she would risk standing in a window at dawn just to see, with her own eyes, that I would get on that coach and go.

The coach drew up to the gates with its four horses and its top laden with passengers. The guard and coachman loudly urged haste. My trunk was hoisted up. I was taken from Bessie's neck, to which I clung with kisses.

"Be sure and take good care of her," cried she to the guard as he lifted me into the inside.

"Take care, Bessie Lee!" I shouted back, though we were already pulling away, for I did not doubt that she was the one more in need of protection in continuing to live with the Reeds.

Thus was I severed from Bessie and Gateshead, thus whirled away to unknown and, as I then deemed, remote and mysterious regions.

I remember but little of the journey. We passed through several towns, and in a large one the coach stopped. The horses were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments. I walked about for a long time, feeling strange and mortally apprehensive of someone's coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles.

I wouldn't have been surprised had Mrs. Reed hired someone to do the vile deed of capturing me and killing me before I could get to the school and spread stories of life at Gateshead. To what lengths would she go to protect her secret from exposure? But if she'd meant