“How are you now?” she asked in a gentle tone. “You seemed like to die when we found you last night, but I think you needed only rest and warmth. Lie still and I will send for food.”
I did as bid, and my strength returned with the tea and toast, the butter and egg, that I was given to break my fast. Diana Rivers, for that was the young woman’s name, explained that her brother, St John, had found me on their doorstep in the dark wet of night, and that she and her sister Mary had washed me and put me to bed, for I would have perished else.
“We had to soak the clothes from your back, for they had stuck to your wounds. How came you to be wandering on a night like last, and in such a state?”
There was nothing for it, and I had to explain how I had left the employment I had been in, lost my belongings, and been taken up by the people of the village as a vagrant, though I would not tell her who my employer had been, nor did I tell her how I had been raped by the coachman. As a further precaution, I gave them my name as Jane, to be true, but Jane Elliot, not Eyre.
Diana, and her sister Mary, were all concern at my story, taking it in turns to nurse me, and sit by my side. Twice a day, they would lay me on the bed, soft towelling under me, my body quite bare, then wash me gently with warm water and mild soap on a piece of flannel, tutting over the stripes on my back, murmuring at the cruel bites the whip had made in the sides of my breasts, still sore and angry, though I no longer bled.
When they came to my poor abused fork, where the lips of my purse were still swollen and bruised, they would be especially gentle, letting the flannel slide caressingly over the tumescence, until the warmth of the water was echoed in the warmth rising between my legs, substituting their fingers as they felt my response, stroking the delicate lips softly until the guardian button at their juncture lifted its head and claimed their attention for herself. I would float upon a rising sea until all the tensions and aches in my body burst in one great shudder of delight, leaving me calm and comforted.
Each girl had her own particular way of expressing her affection, as she administered this healing ease. Diana, the eldest, would claim me almost as a man, kissing my lips as her fingers worked their magic, while Mary would kiss the sides of my poor bruised breasts, until my nipples awoke and she would transfer her affection to them, sucking on the swollen teats, the while her hand was busy below, sending hot currents down into my belly where they burst, engulfing me with warmth and love. To show my gratitude I would give back similar coin, kissing Mary on the lips, since she was pliant and receptive, responding to the invitation of Diana’s unlaced bodice, spilling full ripe breasts of milky lushness, but pressing my lips to their peach-like curve, then applying them to the turgid teats, that seem to quiver with a life of their own, rather than that of she who bore them so proudly on her breast.
Under their careful hands I soon recovered enough to leave my bed, and join them in their daily lives, though they never neglected to come to my room at night and see that I sank into my needed rest with a body first roused, then calmed, by they loving hands and lips.
Diana and Mary were a year or two older than I, and their brother St John a few years more again. He was an ordained clergyman, parson to a village not far off, but spending the greater part of his time at the Moors house at present, since their father, a yeoman farmer of great good repute in the district, had just died, and they were settling his affairs, and accommodating to their loss.
Lost Relations
Those first days at the Moors house were some of the happiest in my life, when the spectre of Thornfield did not intrude, for I seemed to have found the family I had never had, two loving sisters, and a stern brother, a man to rule, as was proper in a house of women. Inevitably, however, the time came for the girls to return to their charges, there, with rod and strap, to help them become women worthy of their station, while St John’s parish duties called. The problem of what was to become of me he solved by obtaining for me the post of teacher to the school for girls, that was to be opened in the village. It was but small, and the remuneration only sufficient for bare essentials, but a cottage went with it, together with a grown girl, who received tuition in return for acting as my servant.
The school had been endowed by Mr Oliver, the only rich man of the area, whose needle factory and iron foundry was the principal source of employment.
And so we continued our way, I in my school, Diana and Mary at their posts in a fashionable Southern city, writing with affectionate remembrance of our intimacies, and St John working for souls here and abroad. One evening he called on me in my little cottage while I was indulging my pleasure and, dare I say it, skill, in drawing a representation of Diana, as I most fondly remembered her, her head thrown back in an ecstasy, the lovely lines of her throat bare, and running down to join the, equally bare, contours of her breasts, the teats standing hard and proud, like small soldiers on parade, or the knobs of a Chinese cabinet, finished in scarlet lacquer.
He was much taken with the picture, but then his gaze wandered. I glanced down to see what could divert him from Diana’s lovely form and saw him looking, with what in him was some agitation, at the sheet of paper I had been using to keep my hand from soiling the portrait as I drew. It was covered with a myriad of studies for the main portrait, mainly of the nipples, as I had striven to recall their exact form, the precise way in which the end bud swelled from the neck, the manner of the aureolae, with their delicate edges and the ring of little protrusions, like lesser stones set in a brooch around the fine gem of the teat in the centre, but I had also been forming letters, as I sat in reverie, among them my name, Jane Eyre, plain for him to see.
Well what of it? It could mean nothing to him. But it seems it did, for he uncrossed his legs before the fire, and lay back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, and I listened attentively, as was my duty, besides my pleasure, given my insatiable curiosity.
“About twenty years ago a young curate married a young lady of good family, far above him and against their will. She was cut off by the family and, tragically, within two years, they were both dead, leaving an orphan girl. The girl was brought up by her Aunt, a Mrs Reed.”
Here I started, but stayed silent and he went on.
“When the child was ten, she was sent to Lowood school, where she endured a harsh upbringing, the child not spoiled for the rod was not spared. Indeed, I hear their buttocks bled and their palms ached continuously. When she was eighteen, this girl, Jane Eyre by name, obtained a post as governess to the ward of a Mr Rochester of Thornfield Hall.” He paused and looked directly at me. I looked as directly back.
“Does it not seem strange to you that the story should so parallel your own?”
I admitted nothing, but asked him if there was any more.
“Oh yes,” he said. “It appears she was offered marriage, found he was already married and fled. She has been sought ever since. There have been posters on trees, advertisements in the papers, and enquiries of all kinds, but to no avail. I have myself received a letter from a solicitor on the matter. Is it not odd, do you not think, and the tale so like your own in all respects?”
“But tell me this Sir,” I asked, “since enquiry has been made of Mr Rochester, you must know how he does.”
“I neither know nor care. It is you they seek, for you will admit it is you now I think.” he replied.
“But Mr Rochester. They must have written, had some reply. What of him?”
“There was a letter, saying you had fled and nothing known. The letter was signed by a lady, an Alice Fairfax,” St John vouchsafed, “but no more of this Rochester. Do you not wish to know why you are sought?”
It seemed useless to persist in my enquiries after my Master and I asked the question he assumed.
“So why should they seek her?” I asked.
“First, will you now admit that you are Eyre not Elliot?”
It seemed useless to do otherwise.
“Rich! How rich?” I gasped. “I have no prospects of riches.”
He took a letter from his pocket book.
“This is a letter from Mr Briggs, solicitor of London, who has instituted all these vain inquiries. It says that your Uncle, the late Mr James Eyre of Madeira, has left you his entire fortune, invested in Government bonds.”
My Uncle, that Aunt Reed had cut me off from! As I stared amazed, I was unable to take in the fact of being an heiress, and took refuge in another question that puzzled me.
“How comes it that the solicitor should write to you, the parson of a small parish, and many miles from Thornfield?”
At first he would not answer, but, stubborn as he was, I could be more so when roused, even though my nature was to yield when faced with authority, but this time there was something more I sensed, and I would have it all. Eventually he gave way.
“Very well then. Mr Eyre’s sister was my mother. We are related, cousins. James is the estranged Uncle that cut our side of the family out of his will. You are the lost beneficiary.”
It came as a thunderbolt, such a shock it was, but such welcome surprise, such happy astonishment. My beloved Mary, my adored Diana, my cousins. We were close enough already, now we could not be closer. Nothing would come between us now, as nothing came between our intimacies in the bedchamber, when we lay together flesh to flesh, passion flowing unimpeded between us.
“It is not right,” I said. “Your claim is at least as great as mine. It must be shared between us.”
“You have not asked me yet how much it is,” he replied.
I had not thought about it, what was money’s worth compared with finding a family, but now I supposed, hoped, it might be two thousand pounds, perhaps three. Properly invested, I could live comfortably on such a sum, without the need to hire myself out again as Governess or Teacher.
“How much then?” I asked.
He told me, and I could not believe him.
“Twenty thousand pounds! Surely you have got it wrong. Perhaps you have misread the noughts and it is two,” I protested.
“The sum was written in words, twenty thousand pounds.”
“Then the lawyer must have been mistaken,” I suggested.
“Lawyers do not make mistakes with this sort of money,” he replied, and I had to admit he was right.
“If it really is so,” I asserted, “it only makes my case the stronger. I can live on a quarter of the sum in all the comfort I need, and so can Diana and Mary, not to mention the fact that they may hope to contract very favourable marriages as a result. We could open up the old house again, and all live together. I would have a family, and you could give up your living and devote yourself to that training you so desire, to equip you to be a missionary.”
It was the latter argument that gained the day.
“It must be an act of divine providence, that brought you to this decision,” he said, “and who am I to dispute the divine will. It shall be as you say.”
Overjoyed, I wrote to Diana and Mary that very night. Within the month they had given up their posts and returned to the Moors House, where the old servant, Hannah, was already opening up the rooms. With our new found wealth we were able to put the house to rights, and furnish it with all the comforts we desired, living together in loving harmony, the three girls often sharing one bed, so happy were we with each others company, giving and receiving kisses and caresses far into the nights, until we all three lay tangled together in moist warm satiation.
A Disciplined Household
You might argue, quite reasonably, that such luxurious living is very bad for young females, and that our characters and souls might suffer as a result of our indulgent ease, but such was not the case. When I had first lodged at the Moors House, over a year before, I had been aware that the brother and sisters went off privately, for what they referred to as ‘family business’, on the evening of the first Sunday of each month, when St John returned from Evensong, retiring to their own rooms thereafter, and not reappearing until breakfast. Now that I, too, was ‘family’, I was invited to join with this monthly ritual.
We assembled in the largest room, all dressed in our strictest black, as befitted the solemnity of the occasion, St John in his sober clerical suit, with white bands, we girls in black gowns, our hair put up under small lace caps. I was surprised before the first of these ‘family courts’ as they became known, to be advised by Diana that it would be unsuitable to wear stays, nor indeed any other underwear, on these occasions. I soon realised the wisdom of her advice!
Apart from the practicalities of the minimal dress we wore, it bore on our feelings and sensibilities. Our tight lacing held us in check. It provided a restraint and a protection, two things that the feminine nature dearly needs if it is not to run unchecked and fearful in a world where it is both a danger and in danger. The feel of those tight unyielding bonds about our bodies, controlling our more tumultuous motions, helps us to behave with that dignity and submissiveness that is the hallmark of the true female, while at the same time reassures us with its protective embrace.
To attend for a disciplinary session without the benefit of satin and whalebone left us feeling both vulnerable and unregulated, responsible utterly for our behaviour and our demeanour under correction.
First we knelt in a row at prayer, while St John stood over us with his black book in his hand, enjoining the Lord to look mercifully on his weaker creation, woman, that she might be purged by confession, repentance and penance, from the errors to which she was slave, and to give him the strength to carry out this cleansing, for the good of their bodies and the salvation of their souls. When we had added our ‘amens’ in affirmation of these pious sentiments, he called on Diana to step forth. She did so, and stood with bowed head and folded hands before him.
“Being weak and female, I have erred,” she began. “I beg penance and forgiveness.”
This seemed to be a standard formula, rather like the mea culpa of the Catholic faith, and St John invited her to list her sins. She confessed at once to a short litany of misdemeanours, to forgetting to examine his coat for missing buttons, to speaking sharply to Hannah when that ancient broke a china plate, to going into church that morning without observing that a passing horse at the Churchyard gate, had kicked a smear of mud onto the hem of her gown.
“And is that all you have to tell?” St John enquired in a voice that seemed to imply he expected more, or that she had wilfully omitted some mortal sin.
“Yes, Brother,” she replied, “I can think of nothing else, save of being woman, and therefore weak and open to wickedness.”
“The latter is true enough, and I shall have something to say on the matter later that concerns you all, but have you forgotten how I asked you, yesterday, while composing my sermon, for fresh paper and ink? You were playing the piano at the time, and continued with the piece to the end, rather than satisfy my wants.”
“But St John, you were not out of either, merely short, as I could well see, and I fetched them to you as soon as the piece was done, when you still were writing freely.”
“You miss the point, Sister. When I call on you for something that is to further the Lord’s work, it is your duty to obey without thought, trusting to my judgement as a man, rather than your fallible woman’s estimation.”
Diana kept her eyes directed to the floor. “Yes, St John,” she said meekly.
“It appears to me,” he said sternly, “that you are altogether too stiff and proud. This independence you now all enjoy,” casting his eye over the three of us, “is not conducive to a proper Christian humility in you. I shall therefore from now on, administer a caning to each of you at the conclusion of our Sunday inquisition, in addition to any other penances that you may have deserved. You will each take it with fortitude and restraint, to show your acquiescence and acceptance of the Lord’s will.”
He turned his attention back to Diana.
&nbs
p; “As to you, Sister, there is the matter of your neglected domestic duties. You shall receive three strokes of the cane on either hand.”
If we had been meek before, this speech rendered us more than docile. We were aware already that his entry into preparations for the missionary life had made his stern nature even more implacable, and we could now look forward to a very ‘tight’ regime indeed. Though he had not specified what manner of caning we were to receive, to temper our souls, it was obviously going to be a sore trial if he was to achieve his object of inducing humility in us.
I subsequently learnt that, whenever he referred to a caning without specifying strokes, it was always a tradition hallowed ‘six of the best’ upon the bare.
Sentence having been passed, Diana was commanded to stretch out her left hand supported on her right, both elbows pressed tight into her sides to brace them. St John stood to one side and raised his rod. It slashed into the tender pink palm offered to it with a meaty sound out of keeping with the delicacy of the flesh it laced. Diana winced at the pain, but one hand held the other from flinching. She gasped at the blow, but kept her hand exposed as a red line formed across the pale flesh. A second blow followed, drawing a whine of anguish, her hands wavering under the incoming tide of pain, her face twisted in agony as she made herself offer the palm again. When the third fell she snorted down her nose, wetted already by the tears that had started in her eyes, so that a sticky mucous ran past her riven mouth to dribble down her chin.
On his command, she placed the wounded left hand under the as yet unbruised right, which she now offered to the rod, a substantial instrument, more suited to a padded buttock than a lightly fleshed palm. It was clear Diana would not be able to manage any fine sewing for days, and the ordinary tasks of housework would constantly remind her, through the soreness they aroused, of her dereliction of duty that had brought about this punishment. Methodically, he thrashed the cane into the right hand, three carefully spaced cuts, each dragging a gasp and a mewling whine from Diana, who hunched over her tortured palms, but otherwise did not move.
Jane and Her Master Page 14