© Шитова Л. Ф., адаптация, сокращение, словарь, 2023

© ООО «ИД «Антология», 2023

Chapter I

There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering in the shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner, the cold winter wind had brought clouds and a rain, and further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons. Mrs. Reed’s children – Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her looked perfectly happy. She excluded me from the group and told me to be seated somewhere; and until I could speak pleasantly, remain silent.

I slipped in the breakfast-room. It contained a bookcase: I soon chose a volume with pictures. I got into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red curtain, I felt safe.

I returned to my book – Bewick^[1]’s History of British Birds.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding, yet deeply interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie, the nurse, sometimes told on winter evenings, when she was in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery, she allowed us to sit about it and listen to passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads.

With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened.

“Madam Mope^[2]!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.

“Where the dickens is she^[3]!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan^[4] is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain – bad animal^[5]!”

“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I; and I wished he might not discover my hiding-place; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once —

“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.”

And I came out immediately, for I feared my being dragged forth by Jack.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Say, ’What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he made a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was ten: large and stout for his age, with thick lineaments in his face. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the master, believed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes sent him from home.

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually. The servants couldn’t take my part against him for they did not like to offend their young master. Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject^[6]: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.

Obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could. I knew he would soon strike, and fearing the blow, I thought how disgusting and ugly he looked. Then all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I almost lost balance and made a step or two back from his chair.

“That is for your impudence in answering mama,” said he, “and for your hiding behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes ago, you rat!

“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked then.

“I was reading.”

“Show the book.”

I returned to the window and got it there.

“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to use my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door.”

But before I did, he lifted the book and flung it. The volume hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp.

“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer – you are like a slave-driver!”

“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won’t I tell mama? but first —”

He ran at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck. I don’t very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me “Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words —

“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!”^[7]

Then Mrs. Reed ordered —

“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were immediately upon me, and I was carried upstairs.

Chapter II

I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and I decided, in my desperation, to go all lengths^[8].

“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she’s like a mad cat.”

“For shame^[9]! for shame!” cried the lady’s-maid. “What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your young master.”

“Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?”

“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.”

They had got me by this time into the room indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had put me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands stopped me instantly.

“If you don’t sit still, you must be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.”

“Don’t take them off,” I cried; “I will not stir.”

“Mind you don’t,”^[10] said Bessie; and when she saw that I wasn’t really moving, she loosened her hold of me.

“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to Miss Abbot. “But it was always in her,” was the reply. “She’s an underhand little thing.”

Bessie answered not; but before long, addressing me, she said – “You ought to be aware, Miss, that Mrs. Reed keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse.”

I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me. Miss Abbot joined in —

“And you ought not to think that the Misses Reed and Master Reed are your equals. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble.”

“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, “you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure.”

“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her. Come, Bessie, we will leave her. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, for if you don’t repent, something bad might happen.”

They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.

The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in. It was chill and rarely entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s dust: and Mrs. Reed herself at times visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored some papers, her jewels, and a miniature of her dead husband.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last.

I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. I returned to my stool.

Why was I always suffering, always accused? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana had a spoiled temper, but her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and her every fault was forgiven. John was never punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, set the dogs at the sheep, he called his mother “old girl,” too; sometimes tore and spoiled her silk dresses; and he was still “her own darling.” I tried to commit no fault: I fulfilled every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, from morning to noon, and from noon to night.

My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had blamed John for striking me.

“Unjust! – unjust!” said my reason.

I was like nobody in Gateshead Hall; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them.

Daylight began to leave the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and the afternoon was turning into twilight. I heard the rain still beating on the window and the wind howling in the grove; I grew cold as a stone, and then my courage left me. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so. I could not remember Mr. Reed; but I knew that he was my own uncle – my mother’s brother – that he had taken me as a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise. Then a strange idea occurred to me. I never doubted – that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit might rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs. This idea would be terrible if realized. I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling over my head. I can now assume that this light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then I thought the beam was a herald of some vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; something seemed near me; I rushed to the door and shook the lock. Steps came running along the passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.

“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie.

“What a dreadful noise!” exclaimed Abbot.

“Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!” was my cry.

“What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?” again demanded Bessie.

“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.” I had now got hold of Bessie’s hand, and she did not snatch it from me.

“She has screamed out on purpose,” declared Abbot, in some disgust. “If she had been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks.”

“What is all this?” demanded another voice; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor.

“Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself.”

“Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma’am,” pleaded Bessie.

“Let her go,” was the only answer. “Loose Bessie’s hand, child: it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer.”

“O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it – let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if —”

“Silence!” I was an actress in her eyes.

When Bessie and Abbot had left, Mrs. Reed thrust me back and locked me in, without farther words. Soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a fit and lost consciousness.