Chapter 3 Illness

1 The next thing that I remember is waking up with a feeling as if I had had a fearful dream, and seeing before me a terrible hot red light, crossed with thick bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound. Uncertainty and fright confused my senses. Then I became conscious that someone was lifting me up more gently than I had ever been raised before. I rested my head against a pillow, and felt comfortable.

2 In five minutes the cloud of confusion melted away. I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red light came from the nursery fire. It was night. A candle burnt on the table. Bessie stood at the foot of the bed with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me.

3 I felt an inexpressible relief, a feeling of protection and safety, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, a person not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs Reed. Turning from Bessie, I examined the face of the visitor. I knew him. It was Mr Lloyd, who kept a shop for the sale of medicines, and who was sometimes called in by Mrs Reed when one of the servants was ill. For herself and her children she employed a proper doctor.

4 'Well, who am I?' he asked.

5 I spoke his name, offering him my hand at the same time. He took it, smiling and saying, 'You will be better soon.' He then addressed Bessie, warning her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, he left, saying that he would call again the next day.

6 'Do you feel as if you could sleep, miss?' asked Bessie, rather softly.

7 I scarcely dared answer her, as I feared that her next sentence might be rough.

8 'I will try.'

9 'Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?'

10 'No, thank you, Bessie.'

11 'Then I think I will go to bed, but you may call me if you need anything in the night.'

12 Bessie went into the housemaid's room, which was near. I heard her say:

13 'Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery. I daren't be alone with that poor child tonight: she might die. It's strange that she should have fainted so. I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard on her.'

14 Sarah came back with her, and after half an hour of whispering together, they both soon fell asleep. For me, however, it was a night of wakefulness.

15 Next day, by twelve o'clock, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a rug by the nursery fire. I felt weak in body but my worst trouble was an indescribable misery of mind. Yet, I thought, I ought to have been happy, as all the Reeds had gone out in the carriage. Abbot was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved about the nursery at her work, spoke to me now and then with unusual kindness. Then, too, a cake had come up from the kitchen, on a certain brightly painted plate, which I had loved for a long time, but been forbidden to touch. This precious dish was now placed on my knee, and I was invited to eat. Useless favour! I had no desire to eat. Bessie asked whether I would have a book, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library. I had read this book again and again with delight, but when it was now placed in my hands, the pictures that had so often given me pleasure, the huge and the tiny men, filled my mind with fear. I closed the book.

16 Bessie had now finished tidying, and began to sew. Meanwhile she sang. She had a sweet voice, but the song was a sad one, about an orphan child.

17 'Come, Miss Jane, don't cry,' said Bessie, as it ended. She might just as well have said to the fire, 'Don't burn!'

18 Shortly after, Mr Lloyd came in.

19 'What, up already!' he said, as he entered the nursery. 'Well, nurse, how is she?'

20 Bessie answered that I was doing very well.

21 'Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane. You have been crying: can you tell me why? Have you any pain?'

22 'No, sir.'

23 'Oh, I suppose she is crying because she could not go out in the carriage with Missis,' said Bessie.

24 I answered immediately. 'I never cried for such a thing in my life! I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.'

25 'Nonsense, Miss!' said Bessie.

26 Mr Lloyd appeared a little puzzled. He fixed his eyes on me very steadily. Having observed me for some time, he said:

27 'What made you ill yesterday?'

28 'She had a fall,' said Bessie, again entering the conversation.

29 'Fall! Why, that is like a baby! Can't she manage to walk at her age?'

30 'I was knocked down,' was my explanation, drawn from me by my wounded pride. 'But that did not make me ill.'

31 At that moment a loud bell rang. It was for the servant's dinner.

32 'That's for you, nurse,' said Mr Lloyd. 'You can go down.'

33 Bessie would rather have stayed, but she had to go, because punctuality at meals was strictly enforced at Gateshead.

34 'The fall did not make you ill. What did, then?' continued Mr Lloyd when Bessie had gone.

35 'I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost.'

36 I saw Mr Lloyd smile and look puzzled at the same time. 'Ghost! What, you are a baby, after all! You are afraid of ghosts?'

37 'Of Mr Reed's ghost. He died in that room. Neither Bessie nor anyone else will go into it at night, if they can avoid it. It was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle.'

38 'And is it that which makes you so miserable?'

39 'I am unhappy, for other reasons.'

40 'What other reasons? Can you tell me some of them?'

41 How much I wished to reply fully to this question! Children can feel, but they cannot explain their feelings.

42 'For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.'

43 'But you have a kind aunt and cousins.'

44 'But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red room.'

45 Mr Lloyd paused, looking thoughtful.

46 'Don't you think Gateshead is a very beautiful place?' he asked. 'Aren't you very lucky to be able to live here?'

47 'It is not my house, sir, and Abbot says I have less right here than a servant.'

48 'But you wouldn't wish to leave such a splendid place?'

49 'If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it.'

50 'Have you any other relations belonging to your father?'

51 'I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said that possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing of them.'

52 'Would you like to go to school?'

53 I considered. I scarcely knew what school was. John Reed hated his school, and spoke insultingly of his master, but John Reed's opinions were not mine. Bessie's accounts of school discipline, gathered from the young ladies of a family where she lived before coming to Gateshead, were rather alarming, but her details of certain accomplishments gained by these young ladies were attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of scenery and flowers that they did, of songs that they could sing, and of music they could play, of French books that they could translate, till my spirit was stirred to rivalry. Besides, school would be a complete change, the beginning of a new life.

54 'I should indeed like to go to school,' I said at last.

55 'Well, who knows what may happen?' said Mr Lloyd, getting up. As Bessie returned at that moment, he said to her:

56 'Is your mistress back yet? I should like to speak to her before I go.'

57 That night, when Bessie and Abbot sat sewing in the nursery, supposing me to be asleep, I learnt from their conversation that Mr Lloyd had persuaded Mrs Reed to send me to school. On the same occasion I heard for the first time, from Abbot's information to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman, that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, that my grandfather had been so angry at her disobedience that he had left her nothing when he died, that after a year of marriage my father caught a bad fever while visiting the poor, that my mother caught the disease from him, and that both died soon after.