“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.”
“And you can work on muslin and canvas?”
“I can.”
“Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane!
I knew you would be: you will get on whether
your relations notice you or not. There was
something I wanted to ask you. Have you ever
heard anything from your father’s kinsfolk,
the Eyres?”
“Never in my life.”
“Well, you know Missis always said they were
poor and quite despicable: and they may be poor;
but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds
are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre
came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said
you were it school fifty miles off; he seemed so much
disappointed, for he could not stay: he was
going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship
was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked
quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father’s
brother.”
“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?”
“An island thousands of miles off, where they
make wine — the butler did tell me —
"
“Madeira?” I suggested.
“Yes, that is it — that is the very
word.”
“So he went?”
“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house:
Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards
a ‘sneaking tradesman.’ My Robert
believes he was a wine-merchant.”
“Very likely,” I returned; “or perhaps
clerk or agent to a wine-merchant.”
Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer,
and then she was obliged to leave me: I saw
her again for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton,
while I was waiting for the coach. We parted
finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there:
each went her separate way; she set off for the brow
of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to
take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle
which was to bear me to new duties and a new life
in the unknown environs of Millcote.
A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene
in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time,
reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George
Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering
on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such
furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such
prints, including a portrait of George the Third,
and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation
of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to
you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling,
and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit
in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on
the table, and I am warming away the numbness and
chill contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure
to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton
at four o’clock a.m., and the Millcote town
clock is now just striking eight.
