Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fire-places. There, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.
“Is it still ‘Rasselas’?” I asked, coming behind her.
“Yes,” she said, “and I have just finished it.”
And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. Now, thought I, I can perhaps get her to talk. I sat down by her on the floor.
“What is your name besides Burns?”
“Helen.”
“Do you come a long way from here?”
“I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland.”
“Will you ever go back?”
“I hope so, but nobody can be sure of the future.”
“You must wish to leave Lowood?”
“No! Why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.”
“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you!”
“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe, she dislikes my faults.”
“And if I were in your place I should dislike her. I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand. I should break it under her nose.”
“Probably you would do nothing of the sort, but if you did, Mr Brocklehurst would expel you from the school. That would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you, and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.”
“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people, and you are such a great girl. I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.”
“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it. It is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.”
I heard her with wonder. I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance and still less could I understand or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong, but I would not ponder the matter deeply. Like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.
“You say you have faults, Helen. What are they? To me you seem very good.”
“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances. I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly. I seldom put, and never keep, things, in order. I am careless. I forget rules. I read when I should learn my lessons. I have no method, and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular.”
“And cross and cruel,” I added, but Helen Burns would not admit my addition, she kept silence.
“Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?”
At the utterance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face.
“Miss Temple is full of goodness. It pains her to be severe to anyone , even the worst in the school. She sees my errors, and tells me of them gently, and if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.”
“That is curious,” said I, “it is so easy to be careful.”
“For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning, and saw you were closely attentive. Your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove away, when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice. I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house—then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready.”
“Yet how well you replied this afternoon.”
“It was mere chance, the subject on which we had been reading had interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did, and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst, they shed blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!”
Helen was talking to herself now, she had forgotten I could not very well understand her—that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level.
“And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?”
“No, certainly, not often, because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections. Her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain.”
“Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?”
“Yes, in a passive way. I make no effort. I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.”
“A great deal. You are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way. They would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard. I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older, as yet you are but a little untaught girl.”
“But I feel this, Helen. I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me. I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.”
“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it.”
“How? I don’t understand.”
“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.”
“What then?”
“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts. Make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.”
“What does He say?”
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.”
“Then I should love Mrs Reed, which I cannot do. I should bless her son John, which is impossible.”
In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening.
Helen heard me patiently to the end. I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing.
“Well,” I asked impatiently, “is not Mrs Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?”
“She has been unkind to you, no doubt, because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine. But how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, tog
ether with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world, but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies—when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature, whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No—I cannot believe that, I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all, it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime. I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last, with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low, I live in calm, looking to the end.”
Helen’s head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time for meditation. A monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent, “Helen Burns, if you don’t go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I’ll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!”
Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply as without delay.
Chapter Seven
My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age and not the golden age either. It comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot, though these were no trifles.
During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church, but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold, we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there, our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet. I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing, with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils. Whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea time, and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.
Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder. During the morning service we became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between the services.
At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.
I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, “like stalwart soldiers.” The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others.
How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied, each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores.
A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread—a whole, instead of a half, slice—with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter, it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself, but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with.
The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap. They were then propped up with the monitors’ high stools.
I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr Brocklehurst and indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my arrival. Perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon, his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming, but come he did at last.
One afternoon—I had then been three weeks at Lowood—as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing. I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right, it was Mr Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever.
I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition—too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs Reed about my disposition, etcetera. The promise pledged by Mr Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise—I had been looking out daily for the ‘Coming Man’, whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child forever. Now there he was.
He stood at Miss Temple’s side. He was speaking low in her ear. I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said. Its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.
“I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do. It struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil, if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma’am! I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to! When I was here last, I went int
o the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line. There was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair. From the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time.”
He paused.
“Your directions shall be attended to, sir,” said Miss Temple.
“And, ma’am,” he continued, “the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week, it is too much. The rules limit them to one.”
“I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion.”
Mr Brocklehurst nodded.
“Well, for once it may pass, but please not to let the circumstance occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me. I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? And by what authority?”
“I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir,” replied Miss Temple, “the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner time.”
“Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution. It ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians. To the torments of martyrs. To the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him. To His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. To His divine consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye.’ Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!”
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