While rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.

A stranger enters Jane’s life, which ultimately turns out for the better.

But we must begin where we left off…

The next thing I remember is, waking up and feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.

Yep, I can confirm that this is what it feels like to wake up after passing out (even if I’ve never fainted from SHEER TERROR before).

But once Jane becomes properly aware of her surroundings, she realizes there’s a strange gentleman present.

I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician.
‘Well, who am I?’ he asked.
I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it, smiling and saying, ‘We shall do very well by-and-by.’

It’s so strange to me that a child would take comfort in a stranger’s presence – I still tend to be uncomfortable around strangers as an adult – but of course, when your family treats you like dirt, anyone who treats you with respect is a welcome change.

From what I’ve gathered, the difference between an apothecary and a physician is most likely a matter of education and, frankly, class.

I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down.

After he leaves, Bessie asks her if she wants anything to eat or drink before bed, prompting this response:

Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.
‘Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?’
‘You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you’ll be better soon, no doubt.’

But when she thinks Jane doesn’t hear, Bessie admits that she’s afraid the girl will die in the night.

[‘I]t’s such a strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard.’

[…]

‘Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished’ – ‘A great black dog behind him’ – ‘Three loud raps on the chamber door’ – ‘a light in the churchyard just over his grave’ – &c. &c.

Clearly, Jane’s not the only person who sensed something supernatural was afoot…

For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye, and mind were alike strained by dread: such dread as children only can feel.
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room: It only gave my nerves a shock, of which I feel the reverberations of to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering. But I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.

The following day, Jane is clearly suffering from depression, taking no interest in things that would bring her joy in normal circumstances (like reading one of her favorite books, Gulliver’s Travels, or being served a tart on a painted plate that she’d often admired). Jane can’t even enjoy the absence of her horrible relatives properly!

Bessie starts singing ballads amidst her work, and this at least gets a response from Jane.

My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.

Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?
Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only
Watch o'er the steps of the poor orphan child.

Yet distant and soft the night-breeze is blowing,
Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild;
God, in His mercy, protection is showing,
Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,
Or stray in the marshes by false lights beguiled,
Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,
Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.

There is a thought that for strength should avail me,
Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;
Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;
God is a friend to the poor orphan child.

Fun fact: This appears to be a Bronte original, as unlike the song Bessie sang before it, there seems to be no record of such a ballad outside of this book. She has written poetry, too, so it’s not exactly unsurprising.

Anyhow, this makes Jane cry, and soon afterward, Mr. Lloyd makes his follow-up visit.

‘Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage,’ interposed Bessie.
‘Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness.’
I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, ‘I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.’
‘Oh fie, Miss!’ said Bessie.
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey: not very bright, but I daresay I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered me at his leisure, he said: ‘What made you ill yesterday?’
‘She had a fall,’ said Bessie, again putting in her word.
‘Fall! why that is like a baby again! Can’t she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.’
‘I was knocked down,’ was the blunt explanation jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride: ‘but that did not make me ill,’ I added […].

The fact that she appears to be a year or two younger than her actual age might be a sign of malnourishment, by-the-by. Or else she just has that sort of face (like me).

Anyhow, Bessie is summoned to dinner, and with Mr. Lloyd’s assurance that he’ll lecture Jane in the meantime, Bessie leaves them alone.

‘The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?’ pursued Mr. Lloyd, when Bessie had gone.
‘I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.’
I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time: ‘Ghost! what, are you a baby after all! Are you afraid of ghosts?’
‘Of Mr. Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor anyone else will go into it at night, if they can help it; it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle,- so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.’
‘Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in the daylight?’
‘No: but night will come again before long: and besides, -I am unhappy,-very unhappy, for other things.’
‘What other things? Can you tell me some of them?’
How much I wished to reply fully to his question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response.
‘For one thing, I have no father or mother, or brothers or sisters.’
‘You have a kind aunt and cousins.’
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced: ‘But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room.’
‘Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?’ asked he. ‘Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?’
‘It is not my house, sir; Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant.’
‘Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?’
‘If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.’

Mr. Lloyd proceeds to ask if she has any other relatives she could go to, but as Mrs. Reed only reiterates that any relatives that Jane could possibly have would be impoverished (and Jane as a child can’t comprehend the idea that poor people could also be good people), she says that she’d rather not pursue being placed with other relatives.

‘Would you like to go to school?’
[…] I scarcely knew what school was; Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie’s accounts of school discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.
‘I should indeed like to go to school,’ was the audible conclusion to my musings.
‘Well, well; who knows what may happen?’ said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up; ‘the child ought to have change of air and scene,’ he added, speaking to himself; ‘nerves not in a good state.’

He wastes no time in recommending this to Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Reed, for her part, is happy with the idea of finding somewhere to ship Jane off to. Abbot relays this news to Bessie (condescendingly as always).

I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot’s communication to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was prevalent; that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

From this, we can conclude one of two things: Either her father was so devoted to his impoverished parish that he would pass up any offer to move him to a wealthier one, or Grandfather Reed was just a horrible person that would rather see his daughter die in poverty than support her family in any way. Because the Reeds would control the curacy surrounding Gateshead Hall, so he could just as easily have given it to Mr. Eyre, but he didn’t. I feel like either reading is a legitimate possibility.

Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, ‘Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot.’
‘Yes,’ responded Abbot, ‘if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that.’
‘Not a great deal, to be sure,’ agreed Bessie: ‘at any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition.’

because clearly, kids have to be PRETTY to merit empathy for their suffering

Next time: A change…