Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks.
Tea ready, I was going to approach the table;but she desired me to sit still,quite in her old peremptory tones.I must be served at the fireside, she said;and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast,absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.
She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall,and what sort of a person the mistress was;and when I told her there was only a master,whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him.I told her he was rather an ugly man,but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly,and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she relished.
In such conversation an hour was soon gone:Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c., and,accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall.It was also accompanied by her that I had,nearly nine years ago,walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark,misty, raw morning in January,I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.
“You shall go into the breakfast-room first,” said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall;“the young ladies will be there.”
In another moment I was within that apartment.There was every article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick’s British Birds occupying their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver’s Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition.
Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall,almost as tall as Miss Ingram—very thin too,with a sallow face and severe mien.There was something ascetic in her look,which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted,black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar,hair combed away from the temples,and the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix.This I felt sure was Eliza,though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage.
The other was as certainly Georgiana:but not the Georgiana I remembered—the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven.This was a full-blown, very plump damsel,fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular features,languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair.The hue of her dress was black too;but its fashion was so different from her sister’s—so much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as the other’s looked puritanical.
In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one;the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent’s Cairngorm eye:the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.
Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me,and both addressed me by the name of “Miss Eyre.” Eliza’s greeting was delivered in a short,abrupt voice, without a smile;and then she sat down again,fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me.Georgiana added to her “How d’ye do?” several commonplaces about my journey, the weather,and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone:and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a “quiz” without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed.
A sneer, however, whether covert or open,had now no longer that power over me it once possessed:as I sat between my cousins,I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.
“How is Mrs. Reed?” I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana,who thought fit to bridle at the direct address,as if it were an unexpected liberty.
“Mrs. Reed?Ah!mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly:I doubt if you can see her to-night.”
“If,” said I, “you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come,I should be much obliged to you.”
Georgiana almost started,and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide.“I know she had a particular wish to see me,” I added,“and I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary.”
“Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,” remarked Eliza. I soon rose,quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited,and said I would just step out to Bessie—who was,I dared say, in the kitchen—and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs.Reed was disposed to receive me or not to-night.I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my errand,I proceeded to take further measures.It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance:received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago,have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning;now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan.I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt,and I must stay with her till she was better—or dead:as to her daughters’ pride or folly,I must put it on one side,make myself independent of it.So I addressed the housekeeper;asked her to show me a room,told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two,had my trunk conveyed to my chamber,and followed it thither myself:I met Bessie on the landing.
“Missis is awake,” said she;“I have told her you are here:come and let us see if she will know you.”