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Recording by Elizabeth Klett Jane Eyre by Charlotte BRONTË 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,

&c.; 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 for ever: 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 into 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!"

Mr. Brocklehurst again paused--perhaps overcome by his feelings.

Miss Temple had looked down when he first began

to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally

pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness

and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would

have required a sculptor's chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually

into petrified severity.

Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind

his back, majestically surveyed the whole school.

Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either

dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents

than he had hitherto used--

"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--_what_ is that girl with curled hair?

Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?"

And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking

as he did so.

"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.

"Julia Severn, ma'am!

And why has she, or any other, curled hair?

Why, in defiance of every precept and principle

of this house, does she conform to the world so openly--here in an

evangelical, charitable establishment--as to wear her hair one mass

of curls?"

"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.

"Naturally!

Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls

to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance?

I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to

be arranged closely, modestly, plainly.

Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will

send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the

excrescence--that tall girl, tell her to turn round.

Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to

the wall."

Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away

the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and

when the first class could take in what was required of them, they

obeyed.

Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and

grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr.

Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that,

whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside

was further beyond his interference than he imagined.

He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then

pronounced sentence.

These words fell like the knell of doom--

"All those top-knots must be cut off."

Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.

"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of

this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the