I was no Helen Burns.

Jane’s past finally catches up with her, but it doesn’t end quite as badly as she initially expected, because she has a community now.

My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not a 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.

While the lack of food is her main complaint, the girls lack suitable clothing as well, from lacking boots and gloves (making any attempt at outdoor exercise nearly impossible in the winter), to thin dresses which make the mandatory walk to church every Sunday excruciating.

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.

Then, one day, Jane spies Mr. Brocklehurst approaching the school.

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 his 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.

But it turns out that he’s more concerned about nitpicking Miss Temple about every “extravagance” (read: money spent that wasn’t in the budget, but she deemed necessary for the girls’ education). Like when she permitted two of the older students to PUT ON CLEAN CLOTHES when they were invited to tea. Mr. Brocklehurst allows for that when she explains it, but he criticizes her for the lunch of bread and cheese she allowed the students on Jane’s first day (an occasion that evidently occurred twice), because, ya know, THEIR BREAKFAST WAS INEDIBLE. No talk about replacing the kitchen staff responsible for the waste of food, though, funny enough, because he seems to consider the occasional lack of breakfast an edifying spiritual experience for the girls.

“Madame, 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, and self-denying. Should any accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or overdressing 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 the temporary privation. A brief address on these 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 the martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord himself, calling upon his disciples to take up their cross and follow him; to his warning 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 require a sculptor’s chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity.

Miss Temple clearly understands that growing children need food in order to focus on their studies, if nothing else. When Jesus said that line about “not living by bread alone”, it was at a time that he’d specifically dedicated to fasting and prayer, when he’d presumably had a steady diet before. These girls barely have enough food to survive when all their food IS edible (as evidenced by the older girls consistently poaching food from the younger ones), and comparing burnt food to a meal being over- or under-seasoned (which they presumably deal with anyway at supper, the only occasion they normally get meat) is just insulting.

“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 Secern,” 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 tomorrow: 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.”

So it’s all fine to waste money on a BARBER, but not on more competent kitchen staff. Glad he has his priorities straight.

This also represents a sort of racism that isn’t often discussed in America: Anti-Irish racism! People of Irish descent often have red hair, and frequently textured hair at that. Textured hair (and the hairstyles developed to manage it) is frequently criticized to this day as “unprofessional”.

Anyhow, Mr. Brocklehurst decrees that all of these older students must have their hair cut, too (when they’ll presumably be graduating soon, and women having short hair in that day and age could potentially influence their employment opportunities).

“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 flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven: these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of-“
Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs.

Because braids are one of the more practical ways for a girl to do up her hair when she has work to do…and I’m pretty sure that verse in the Bible was about women wearing costly hair ornaments, not just tying their hair up.

But the women that just walked in are naturally Mr. Brocklehurst’s, his wife and daughters. And of course he has no problem with their extravagant garb because they’re SUPPOSED to be wealthy!

Then Jane drops her slate and breaks it…

“A careless girl!” said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after – “It is the new pupil, I perceive.”
And before I could draw breath, “I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her.” Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! “Let the child who broke the slate come forward!”
Of my own accord, I could not have stirred: I was paralysed: but the two great girls who sat on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me toward the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel, – “Don’t be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished.”
The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.
“Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite,” thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulse at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.

She assumes they’ll believe Mr. Brocklehurst, partly because she herself believes that she’s “bad”, even if she always tried her best to be good. But at least Helen already heard her side of the story, and was sympathetic, even if she didn’t fully take Jane’s side.

I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst’s nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses, and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me.
Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.
“Ladies,” said he, turning to his family; “Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?”
Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin.
“You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that he has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case.”
A pause – in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained.
“My dear children,” pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, “this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God’s own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example: if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from our converse. Teachers, you must weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut – this girl is – a liar!”
Now came a pause of ten minutes; during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones whispered “How shocking!”

I mean, even if she WAS a liar, she’s awful young to be written off as “beyond saving”. She’s ten years old! I was very different at ten than I am now. Some people just need to grow up. It’s not that big a deal.

“This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.”

This just serves to show that Mr. Brocklehurst doesn’t even know his Bible references, as the whole thing with the pool of Bethesda is that it was supposed to heal people if they entered the water AFTER it was supposedly troubled by an angel (and it was seemingly brought up to highlight the fact that people didn’t have the power to sanctify themselves by their own power). They didn’t just sit in the pool all day!

There was I, then, mounted aloft: I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were, no language can describe: but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge”; scarcely an hour ago, I had heard her condemned by Miss Scratcherd to a dinner of bread and water tomorrow, because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scratcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightening of the orb.

Because even if all the rest of the school were against Jane, she still has a friend in Helen.

Until next time…