I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had

so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days.

I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light

stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the

great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-

table, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred

times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me

uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to

see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk

there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or

shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and

leant over the high-piled pillows.

Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the

familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings

of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had

left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now

with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings,

and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries--to be

reconciled and clasp hands in amity.

The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever--there was

that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised,

imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace

and hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and

sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped

down and kissed her: she looked at me.

"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.

"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"

I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought

it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened

on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine

kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But

unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural

antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away,

and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night

was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her

opinion of me--her feeling towards me--was unchanged and

unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye--opaque to tenderness,

indissoluble to tears--that she was resolved to consider me bad to

the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous

pleasure: only a sense of mortification.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024