“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie.
“What a dreadful noise! it went quite through
me!” exclaimed Abbot.
“Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!”
was my cry.
“What for? Are you hurt? Have you
seen something?” again demanded Bessie.
“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost
would come.” I had now got hold of Bessie’s
hand, and she did not snatch it from me.
“She has screamed out on purpose,” declared
Abbot, in some disgust. “And what a scream!
If she had been in great pain one would have excused
it, but she only wanted to bring us all here:
I know her naughty tricks.”
“What is all this?” demanded another
voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor,
her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily.
“Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that
Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came
to her myself.”
“Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma’am,”
pleaded Bessie.
“Let her go,” was the only answer.
“Loose Bessie’s hand, child: you
cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured.
I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is
my duty to show you that tricks will not answer:
you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is
only on condition of perfect submission and stillness
that I shall liberate you then.”
“O aunt! have pity! Forgive me!
I cannot endure it — let me be punished
some other way! I shall be killed if —
"
“Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:”
and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious
actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as
a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and
dangerous duplicity.
Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient
of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly
thrust me back and locked me in, without farther parley.
I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was
gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness
closed the scene.
The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling
as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing
before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick
black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with
a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind
or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating
sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long,
I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting
me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and
that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld
before. I rested my head against a pillow or
an arm, and felt easy.
In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved:
I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that
the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night:
a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the
bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman
sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.
