contradict my assertion—expose my falsehood as soon as you like.
You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked
by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never
have been tempted to commit.”
“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and
to regard me with kindness and forgiveness”
“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this
day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you
could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the
tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.”
“My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but
not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been
glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to
be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.”
I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She
said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded
water. As I laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on
my arm while she drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand
with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing
eyes shunned my gaze.
“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you
Charlotte Bront. ElecBook Classics
f
Jane Eyre 340
have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s, and be at
peace.”
Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the
effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever
hated me—dying, she must hate me still.
The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-
an-hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave
none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again
rally: at twelve o’clock that night she died. I was not present to
close her eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell
us the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid
out. Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out
into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched
Sarah Reed’s once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye
of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits
wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn
object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain:
nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or
subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for her woes—not
my loss—and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death
in such a form.
Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some
minutes she observed—
“With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age:
her life was shortened by trouble.” And then a spasm constricted
her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the
room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear.
Charlotte Bront. ElecBook Classics
f
Jane Eyre 341
Chapter XXII
Mr. Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of
absence: yet a month elapsed before I quitted
Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the
funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to
London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr.
Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister’s interment and
settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left
alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her
dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I
bore with her feeble-minded qailings and selfish lamentations as
well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her
dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I
thought to myself, “If you and I were destined to live always
together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different
footin"};
