I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to
subdue her--to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her
will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them
back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat
down and leaned over the pillow.
"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here; and it is my intention to
stay till I see how you get on."
"Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?"
"Yes."
"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some
things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late,
and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something
I wished to say--let me see--"
The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken
place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the
bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt,
fixed it down: she was at once irritated.
"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast.
Are you Jane Eyre?"
"I am Jane Eyre."
"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe.
Such a burden to be left on my hands--and so much annoyance as she
caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition,
and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural
watchings of one's movements! I declare she talked to me once like
something mad, or like a fiend--no child ever spoke or looked as she
did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did they do
with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the
pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did--I wish
she had died!"
"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"
"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only
sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's
disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of
her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby;
though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its
maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it--a
sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all
night long--not screaming heartily like any other child, but
whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and
notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever
noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children
friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and
he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last
illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an
hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature. I
would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a
workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all
resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like
my brothers--he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease
tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more money to give
him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and
shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never submit to do
that--yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes in
paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and
always loses--poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and
degraded--his look is frightful--I feel ashamed for him when I see
him."