Because it is the truth.
You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity.
I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back—into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress,
‘Have mercy!
Have mercy, Aunt Reed!’
And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing.
I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale.
People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted.
You are deceitful!” How dare I, Mrs. Ried? How dare I? Because it is the truth
Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt.
It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty.
Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry.
“Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you?
Why do you tremble so violently?
Would you like to drink some water?”
“No, Mrs. Reed.”
“Is there anything else you wish for, Jane?
I assure you, I desire to be your friend.”
“Not you.
You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I’ll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done.”
“Jane, you don’t understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults.”
“Deceit is not my fault!” I cried out in a savage, high voice.
“But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the nursery—there’s a dear—and lie down a little.”
“I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.”
“I will indeed send her to school soon,” murmured Mrs. Reed sotto voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.
I was left there alone—winner of the field.
It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror’s solitude.
First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses.
A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction.
A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour’s silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position.
Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.
Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed’s pardon; but I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse of my nature.
I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation.
I took a book—some Arabian tales; I sat down and endeavoured to read.
I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found fascinating.
I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds.
I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together.
I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched.
It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, “onding on snaw,” canopied all; thence flakes felt it intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting.
I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and over again,
“What shall I do?—what shall I do?”
All at once I heard a clear voice call,
“Miss Jane! where are you?
Come to lunch!”
It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step came tripping down the path.
“You naughty little thing!” she said.
“Why don’t you come when you are called?”
Bessie’s presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross.
The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid’s transitory anger; and I was disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart.
I just put my two arms round her and said,