Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of

it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a

stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is

another question.

That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-

bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept

into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded

schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the

seminary into an hospital.

Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the

pupils to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay

ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few

who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license; because

the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise

to keep them in health: and had it been otherwise, no one had

leisure to watch or restrain them. Miss Temple's whole attention

was absorbed by the patients: she lived in the sick-room, never

quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at night. The

teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other

necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were

fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to

remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went

home only to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly

and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay.

While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its

frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls;

while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug

and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of

mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and

beautiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with

flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened,

tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were

gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars

gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and

these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of

Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and

blossoms to put in a coffin.

But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties

of the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like

gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where

we liked: we lived better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family

never came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised

into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of

infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton

Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with

comparative liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick

could eat little; our breakfast-basins were better filled; when

there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened,

she would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of

bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood,

where we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously.




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