LITMIR.BIZ

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the old porter has left.’

      ‘Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?’ but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.

      ‘You’re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,’ continued Mrs Leaven. ‘I dare say they’ve not kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.’

      ‘Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?’

      ‘Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; and—what do you think?—he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away: but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always quarrelling.’

      ‘Well, and what of John Reed?’

      ‘Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he got—plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.’

      ‘What does he look like?’

      ‘He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips.’

      ‘And Mrs Reed?’

      ‘Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she’s not quite easy in her mind: Mr John’s conduct does not please her—he spends a deal of money.’

      ‘Did she send you here, Bessie?’

      ‘No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I’d just set off, and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach.’

      ‘I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie.’ I said this laughing: I perceived that Bessie’s glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration.

      ‘No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty as a child.’

      I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification.

      ‘I dare say you are clever, though,’ continued Bessie, by way of solace. ‘What can you do? Can you play on the piano?’

      ‘A little.’

      There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was charmed.

      ‘The Miss Reeds could not play as well!’ said she exultingly, ‘I always said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?’

      ‘That is one of my paintings over the chimneypiece.’ It was a landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed.

      ‘Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed’s drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?’

      ‘Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.’

      ‘And you can work on muslin and canvass?’

      ‘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 at 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.

      Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the ‘boots’ placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible: and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts.

      It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant, when half an hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell.

      ‘Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?’ I asked of the waiter who answered the summons.

      ‘Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.’ He vanished, but reappeared instantly:—

      ‘Is your name

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