Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre

At the sound of the breakfast bell, we formed into pairs again to go to the refectory, a gloomy room, furnished with two long tables. Basins of something steaming hot stood on every table though the odour was far from inviting. The tall girls at the front murmured that the porridge had been burnt again.

“Silence,” snapped one of the teachers, a short woman with a sour face. We took our places. A long grace was said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began. I was so hungry that I swallowed several mouthfuls before the revolting, gluey taste of the burned porridge made me stop. I saw each girl taste her food and try in vain to swallow. Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge, taste it and call it ‘disgusting’.

We spent a quarter of an hour in a schoolroom, where mostly all conversations were held on the subject of the breakfast. A clock in the schoolroom struck nine. “Silence!” cried Miss Miller, and the conversations ceased. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect, all in brown dresses and all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible. Miss Miller ordered the monitors to fetch the globes for a geography lesson. But before we started, the dark-haired lady, who had been so kind to me the previous day, entered the room.

She walked up and down the benches inspecting us. I stared at her in awe admiring how tall, beautiful and graceful she was.

As she came to the middle of the room, and stood before us to make an announcement. “You had a breakfast this morning which you could not eat,” she said. “You must be hungry. I have ordered a lunch of bread and cheese to be served to all.”

The teachers looked at her with surprise.

“I will take full responsibility,” she added. And so the delicious fresh bread and cheese was brought in to the high delight of the whole school.

The order was now given ‘To the garden!’ In straw bonnets and grey cloaks we were sent outside.

Outdoors there was a wide square garden surrounded by high walls. A verandah ran along it framed by broad walks. There were also cultivation beds, where in the summer we would grow flowers and vegetables. But at the end of January they were brown and bare. There was a drizzling yellow fog and most pupils huddled in groups to stay warm, only few stronger girls engaged in active games. I saw how pale the children were and heard many of them cough.

I stood lonely, as I had not spoken to anyone. No one took notice of me, and I was accustomed to isolation. I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed long forgotten. I looked round the garden, and then up at the house – a large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. I saw that it had an inscription above the door: “‘Lowood Institution. – ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ – St. Matt. v. 16.”

I read these words over and over again: there must be an explanation. I was still thinking about the inscription when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head. A girl a few years older than me was sitting on a stone bench, reading a book. I saw that it was called – Rasselas. It sounded exotic and exciting, as if it might be about genies and dragons. I wished I had a book to read myself, and I wondered if the girl might lend it to me one day.

As she turned the page, she looked up and I took my chance to speak.

“Is your book interesting?”

“I like it,” she said.

“What is it about?”

She handed me the book to look at. ‘Rasselas’ looked boring. There were no pictures, and I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii. I returned it, and asked instead:

“Have you seen the inscription? What is Lowood Institution?”

“This house where you are now.”

“Why isn’t it called a school?”

“It’s partly a charity-school for orphans.”

“Do we pay no money?”

“We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each. But fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and we are also funded by kind-hearted ladies and gentlemen from the neighbourhood and London. And Mr. Brocklehurst overlooks and directs everything here.”

“Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who said we were to have some bread and cheese?”

“Miss Temple? I wish it did! But she has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst.”

“It is that cruel man who visited Mrs. Reed at Gateshead Hall,” I thought.

“Does he live here?” I asked.

“Oh no, he lives in a big house two miles away, with his family. He’s the village clergyman.[12]”

I asked her about the teachers. They were all nice and she liked them, but Miss Temple was the best. She was very clever and knew far more than the others did.

“Are you an orphan too?” I asked finally.

“My mother is dead.”

“Are you happy here?”