Page:Jane Eyre - an autobiography (IA janeeyreautobiog00bronrich).pdf/6

4 tales and older ballads, or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.

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

"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.

"Where the dickens is she?" he continued.

"Lizzy, Georgy!" (calling to his sisters) "Jane is not here: tell mamma she is run out into the rain—bad animal!"

"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception: 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 trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.

"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.

"Say, 'what do you want, Master Reed!'" was the answer. "I want you to come here;" and, seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a school-boy of fourteen years old—four years older than I, for I was but ten—large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mamma had taken him home for a month or two, "on account of his delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to overapplication, and, perhaps, to pining after 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 a week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh on my bones shrunk when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menances or his inflictions: the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence—more frequently, however, behind her back.

Habitually 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 without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, nndand [sic], while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and, on regaining my equilibrium, retired back a step or two from his chair.

"That is for your impudence in answering mamma a while since," said he, "and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.

"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.

"I was reading."

"Show the book."

I returned to the window and fetched it thence.

"You have no business to take our books: you are a dependent, mamma 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 mamma's expense. Now I'll teach you to rummage my book-shelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows."

I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book, and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm—not soon enough, however: the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.

"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!"

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.

"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 headlong at me; I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder; he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant—a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of some pungent suffering: these sensations, for the time, predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat! rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him; Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone undefined; 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!"

"Did ever any body see such a picture of passion!"

Then Mrs Reed subjoined:

"Take her away to the red-room, and lock