Isla Smith - Avneet Kumar - E-Book

Isla Smith E-Book

Avneet Kumar

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Beschreibung

Isla Smith is a novel of English consists of about 200000 words. Isla Smith is a an educational novel that follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr. Avneet, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall.The novel revolutionized prose fiction by being the first to focus on the moral and spiritual development of its protagonist through an intimate first-person narrative in which actions and events are coloured by a psychological intensity.Isla, a seemingly simple girl as she struggles through the struggles of life. Isla has many obstacles in her life - her cruel and abusive aunt Reed, the grim conditions at Lowood School, her love for Avneet and Avneet's marriage to Bertha.The book contains elements of social criticism with a strong sense of Christian morality at its core, and it is considered by many to be ahead of its time because Islas's individualistic character and how the novel approaches the themes of class, sexuality, religion and feminism.

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Isla Smith

Avneet Kumar

Copyright © 2021-2040 by Avneet Kumar

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Avneet Kumar

[email protected]

Contents

Chapter-1

Chapter-2

Chapter-3

Chapter-4

Chapter-5

Chapter-6

Chapter-7

Chapter-8

Chapter-9

Chapter-10

Chapter-11

Chapter-12

Chapter-13

Chapter-14

Chapter-15

Chapter-16

Chapter-17

Chapter-18

Chapter-19

Chapter-20

Chapter-21

Chapter-22

Chapter-23

Chapter-24

Chapter-25

Chapter-26

Chapter-27

Chapter-28

Chapter-29

Chapter-30

Chapter-31

Chapter-32

Chapter-33

Chapter-34

Chapter-35

Chapter-36

Chapter-37

Chapter-38

Chapter-1

There was no opportunity to go for a walk that day. We had wandered, indeed, into the leafless shrubs one o'clock in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early), the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so dark, and rain so penetrating, that it was now out of the question to continue the exercise outdoors.

I was happy about it: I never liked long walks, especially cold afternoons: terrible for me was the return home in the raw twilight, with pinched fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the rebukes of Bessie, the nurse, and humiliated by the awareness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

Said Eliza, John and Georgiana were now clustered around their mother in the living room: she was lying on a sofa by the fire, and with her darlings around her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had given up on joining the group; saying," she regretted being under the need to keep me at a distance; but that until she heard Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was seriously striving to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and lively way—something lighter, more frank, more natural, so to speak—she really had to exclude me from the privileges intended only for satisfied and happy little children.”

"What did Bessie say I did? “I asked.

"Isla, I do not like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something really forbidden for a child to take his elders in this way. Sit somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

A breakfast room adjoined the living room, I slipped into it. It contained a library: I soon possessed a volume, taking care that it was stored with pictures. I climbed into the window seat: raising my feet, I sat with my legs crossed, like a Turk; and, having almost tightened moreen's red curtain, I was narrowed in a double retreat.

Folds of scarlet draperies closed to my sight in my right hand; on the left were the clear windows, protecting me, but not separating me from the sad November day. At regular intervals, turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the appearance of this winter afternoon. In the distance, it offered a pale white of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-battered shrub, with incessant rain sweeping wildly before a long and lamentable explosion.

I went back to my book-Bewick's History of British Birds: the typography of it, I cared little, in general; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, as a child I was, I could not pass quite as a white man. They were the ones who deal with seabird dens;" solitary rocks and headlands " by themselves inhabited; from the coast of Norway, dotted with islands from its southern end, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the Northern Cape—

"Where the northern ocean, in vast swirls,

Boils around the naked and melancholic Islands

Thule; and The Rise Of The Atlantic

Pours among the Stormy Hebrides.”

I also could not go unnoticed the suggestion of the dark shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitsbergen, New Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with “the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those desolate regions of dreary space, - this reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, icy in the alpine heights above the heights, surround the pole, and concentrate the multiplied rigors of extreme cold. “From these white realms of death, I have formed an idea of my own: dark, like all the half-understood notions that float in children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words of these introductory pages connected with the following vignettes, and gave meaning to the Rock standing alone in a sea of swirls and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and horrible moon looking through cloud bars at a wreck that has just sunk.

I cannot say what a feeling haunted the rather solitary cemetery, with its inscribed tombstone; its door, its two trees, its low horizon, girded by a broken wall, and its newly raised Crescent, attesting to the time of the eventide.

Both ships lay on a torpid sea, I thought they were sea ghosts.

The demon pinning the thief's pack behind him, I quickly passed: it was an object of terror.

So was the Black-Horned thing sitting aloof on a rock, pacing a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, but always deeply interesting: as interesting as the tales that Bessie sometimes told on winter evenings, when she was by chance in a good mood; and when, after bringing her ironing board to the nursery foyer, she allowed us to sit on it, and while she stood up Mrs. Reed's lace ruffles, and crimped her nightcap borders, Fed our eager attention to passages of love and adventure from old fairy tales and other 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 happy then: happy at least in my own way. I was only afraid of interruption, and it came too soon. The door to the breakfast room opened.

"Boh! Mrs. Mope! John Reed's voice shouted; then he stopped; he found the room apparently empty.

"Where's the dickens! “he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy! (calling her sisters) Joan is not there: tell mom she's running out in the rain—bad animal!”

"It is good that I have pulled the curtain," I thought; and I longed that he could not discover my hiding place; John Reed would not have discovered it himself either; he was not quick either of vision or design; but Eliza just put her head at the door, and said straight away—

"She's in the window seat, to be sure, Jack.”

And I went out immediately, because I was trembling at the thought of being dragged by said Valet.

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

Say, " what do you want, Master Reed?’ “was the answer. "I want you to come here;" and sitting in an armchair, he hinted with a gesture that I should approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a fourteen-year-old schoolboy; four years older than me, for I was only ten years old: tall and burly for his age, with dull and unhealthy skin; thick lineaments in a spacious face, heavy limbs and large extremities. He usually gorged at the table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dark, pale eye and flabby cheeks. He was to be at school now; but his mother had brought him home for a month or two, “because of his delicate health. “Mr. Miles, the master, claimed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweets sent from home; but the mother's heart turned away from such a harsh opinion, and instead leaned toward the more refined idea that John's sallowness was due to excessive application and, perhaps, pain after home.

John didn't have much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy for me. He intimidated and punished me; not two or three times in the week, not once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every piece of flesh in my bones shrank as he approached. There were times when I was perplexed at the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal against his threats or insults; 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 hit or heard him abuse me, although he does it from time to time in his very presence, more often, however, behind his back.

Usually obeying John, I approached his chair: he spent about three minutes pushing his tongue on me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I thought of the disgusting and ugly appearance of the one who was going I wonder if he read this notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I staggered, and as I regained my balance, I retreated a step or two from his chair.

"It's for your impudence in answering mom for some time," he said, " and for your stealthy way of going behind the curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes for two minutes, you rat!"”

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had the idea of responding to it; my concern was how to bear the blow that would certainly follow the insult.

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

"I was reading.”

"Show the book.”

I went back to the window and picked it up from there.

"You do not have to take our books; you are dependent," said mother; " you have no money; your father left you none; you should beg, and not live here with children of gentlemen like us, and eat the same meals as US, and wear clothes at our mother's expense. Now I will teach you how to search my library: they are mine; the whole house belongs to me, or will do so in a few years. Go and stand by the door, away from the mirror and windows.”

I did so, not knowing at first what his intention was; but when I saw him lift and balance the book and act to throw it, I instinctively set myself aside with an alarm cry: not soon enough, however; the volume was thrown, it hit me, and I fell, hitting my head against the door the cut was bleeding, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.

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

I had read the history of Rome by Goldsmith, and had formed my opinion on Nero, Caligula, & C. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I would never have thought so to have declared aloud.

"What! what! he shouted. "Did she do that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I say Mom? but first—”

He ran headlong towards me: I felt him grab 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 flowing down my neck, and I was sensitive to a somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received it in a frantic kind. I'm not quite sure what I did with my hands, but he called me " Rat! Rat! and yelled out loud. Help was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who had gone upstairs: she now came to the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were separated: I heard the words—

"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly on Master John!”

"Has never seen such an image of passion!”

Then Mrs. Reed subdued—

"Take her to the Red Room, and lock her in there. “Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was carried upstairs.

Chapter-2

I resisted to the end: something new to me, and a circumstance that greatly reinforced the bad opinion that Bessie and Miss Abbot were willing to have of me. The fact is that I was a little out of myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was aware that the mutiny of a moment had already made me subject to strange punishments, and, like any other rebellious slave, I felt resolved, in my despair, to go to the end.

"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she is like a mad cat.”

"For shame! for shame! “cried the housekeeper. "What a shocking conduct, Miss Smith, to strike a young man, the son of your benefactor! Your young master.”

"Master! How is he My Master? Am I a servant?”

"No, you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your guard. There, sit down and think about your wickedness.”

They had brought me to the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had pushed me on a stool: my impulse was to get up like a spring; their two pairs of hands stopped me instantly.

"If you don't stand still, you have to be tied up," Bessie said. "Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.”

Miss Abbot turned to strip a sturdy leg of the necessary ligature. This bond preparation, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took away some of the excitement.

"Do not remove them," I cried; " I will not stir."”

As a guarantee of what, I tied myself to my seat by my hands.

"Be careful," said Bessie; " and when she understood that I was really calming down, she loosened her grip on me; and then she and Miss Abbot stood with their arms folded, looking at my dark and dubious face, as if in disbelief of my sanity.

"She's never done it before," Bessie finally says, turning to the Abigail.

"But he was still in it," was the answer. "I often told Missis my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. It's a sneaky little thing: I've never seen a girl her age with so much coverage.”

Bessie did not answer; but for a long time, addressing me, she said— " You Must Know, miss, that you have obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you should go to the poor house.”

I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my first memories of existence included advice of the same kind. This reproach of my addiction had become a vague song in my ear: very painful and overwhelming, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in—

"And you should not think about a tie with Miss Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be raised with them. They will have a lot of money, and you will have none: this is the place to be humble, and try to make yourself pleasant for them.”

"What we say to you is for your good," Bessie added, without a harsh voice, " you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you back, I am sure.”

"Moreover," said Miss Abbot, " God will punish her: he could strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come on, Bessie, we're going to leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Smith, when you are alone; for if you do not repent, something bad may come down from the chimney and seek you far away.”

They went, closing the door and locking it behind them.

The Red Room was a square room, very rarely slept, I might say never, indeed, unless an influx of visitors by chance to Gateshead Hall made it necessary to account for all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and most state rooms in the manor. A bed supported on massive mahogany pillars, suspended with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always pulled down, were half wrapped in scallops and similar drapery falls; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with Crimson cloth; the walls were a soft tawny colour with a blush of pink; the wardrobe, the dressing table, the chairs were in Old Dark and polished mahogany. From these deep surrounding shades rose high, and shone White, the stacked mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread out with a snowy Marseille counter-palette. Barely less prominent was an ample upholstered armchair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footrest in front of it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.

This room was cold, because it rarely had a fire; it was silent, because it was far from the nursery and the kitchen; solemn, because it was known that it was so rarely entered. The maid alone came here on Saturday, to wipe mirrors and furniture the quiet dust of a week: and Mrs. Reed herself, at distant intervals, visited him to examine the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where various scrolls were stored, her jewel-coffin, and a miniature of her deceased husband.; and in these last words lies the secret of the Red Chamber-the fate that kept her so alone despite her greatness.

Mr. Reed had been dead for nine years: it was in this room that he breathed the last; it was here that he was in condition; therefore, his coffin was carried by the men of The Undertaker; and, since that day, a sense of sad consecration had kept him from frequent intrusions.

My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Mademoiselle Abbot had left me riveted, was a low pouf by the marble fireplace; the bed rose in front of me; to my right was the tall dark wardrobe, with discreet and broken reflections varying the brilliance of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a large mirror between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and the room. I was not quite sure that they had locked the door; and when I dared to move, I got up and went to see. Alas! Yes: no prison was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross in front of the mirror; my fascinated gaze involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All of them looked colder and darker in this visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure who looked at me, with a white face and arms stained with gloom, and eyes twinkling with fear moving where everything was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought of him as one of the tiny ghosts, half-fairy, half-Pixie, the evening stories of Bessie depicted as coming out of lone, ferny dells in the moors, and appearing before him in the dark. The eyes of late travellers. I went back to my stool.

Superstition was with me at that time; but it was not yet the time for complete victory: My Blood was still hot; the mood of the rebellious slave was still feeding me with his bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thoughts before throwing myself into the dismal present.

All the violent tyrannies of John Reed, all the proud indifference of his sisters, all the dislike of his mother, all the partiality of the servants, appeared in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a murky well. Why Have I always suffered, always frowned, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win someone's favour? Eliza, who was stubborn and Selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temperament, very bitter spite, a captive and insolent carriage, was universally delivered. Her beauty, rosy cheeks and golden curls, seemed to delight everyone who looked at her and buy compensation for every fault. John no one upset, let alone punished; although he twisted the necks of pigeons, killed the Little Pea chicks, put the dogs on the sheep, stripped the greenhouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds of the choicest plants in the Conservatory: he called his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled him for his dark skin, similar to his own; and he was always " his own darling. “I dared not commit any fault: I strove to do all the duties; and they called me naughty and tiring, sullen and stealthy, from morning to noon, and from noon to evening.

My head was still aching and bleeding from the blow and fall that I had received; no one had reproached John for hitting me for no reason; and because I had turned against him to avoid more irrational violence, I was burdened with general reproach.

"Unfair! - unfair! “said My reason, forced by the agonizing stimulus in early power though transient: and the resolution, equally worked, prompted some strange expedient to manage to escape from unbearable oppression-such as fleeing, or, if this could not be carried out, never eat or drink more, and let me die.

What a dismay of soul it was that sad afternoon! How my whole brain was in tumult, and my whole heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the incessant inner question-why I so suffered; now, in the distance of - I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.

I was a discord at Gateshead Hall: I was like no one there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassal. If they did not love me, in fact, as few have I loved them. They were not required to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathize with any of them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in ability, in propensities; a useless thing, unable to serve their interest, or to add to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, I know that if I had been a bloodthirsty, bright, carefree, demanding, handsome, dishevelled child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence with more complacency; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of the feelings of others; the servants would have been less inclined to make me the scapegoat of the manger.

Daylight began to leave the Red Room; it had passed four hours, and the muddled afternoon tended to dread Twilight. I heard the rain still pounding continuously on the window of the stairs, and the wind howling in the grove behind the room; I grew in degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My usual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, desperate depression, fell on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was mean, and maybe I could be that way; what thought had I been, but just conceiving of starving myself? It was certainly a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the choir of Gateshead Church an inviting Bourne? In such a vault I had been told that Mr. Reed was buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I lingered there with dread. I did not remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle—my mother's brother-that he had taken me when a child without parents to his house; and that in his last moments he had demanded a promise from Mrs. Reed that she would raise me and keep me as one of his own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered that she had kept this promise; and therefore she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit; but how could she really love an intruder not of her race, and unconnected with her, after the death of her husband, by any connection whatsoever? It must have been very awkward to find herself bound by a tough commitment to stand in the place of a parent of a strange child she couldn't love, and to see an incongruous stranger permanently encroached on her own family group.

A singular idea came to me. I had no doubt-never doubted—that if Mr. Reed had been alive, he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and the eclipsed walls-sometimes also turning a fascinated eye to the dimly gleaning mirror - I began to remember what I had heard of the Dead Men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wills, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought that Mr. Reed would have been able to do so. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, could leave his abode—whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the deceased—and rise before me in this room. I wiped my tears and muffled my sobs, fearing that any sign of violent grief would awaken a supernatural voice to comfort me, or cause gloom a haloed face, leaning over me with strange pity. This idea, consoling in theory, seemed terrible to me if it was realized: with all my strength I strove to stifle it—I strove to be firm. Shaking my hair with my eyes, I raised my head and tried to boldly look around the dark room; at that moment a light shone on the wall. Was it, I wondered, a ray of the Moon penetrating an opening into the blind? No; the Moonlight was motionless, and it stirred; as I looked, it slid up to the ceiling and shuddered over my head. I can now easily conjecture that this trail of light was, in all likelihood, a glow from a lantern carried by someone across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the fast beam darted was a herald of a vision from another world. My heart was beating hard, my head was warming; a noise filled my ears, which I considered the flapping of wings; something seemed close to me; I was oppressed, choked: endurance was collapsing; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in a desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered.

"Miss Smith, are you sick? “says Bessie.

"What a terrible noise! it went quite by me! “cried the Abbot.

"Take me out! Let me go to the nursery! “to my cry.

"For what to do? Are you hurt? Did you see anything? “again demanded Bessie.

"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come. “I had now put my hand on Bessie, and she did not tear it away from me.

"She screamed on purpose," Abbot said, in some disgust. "And that cry! If she had been in great pain, we would have excused her, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks.”

"What is all this? Another voice peremptorily asked; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, her flying cap, her dress rustling with assault. "Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave the order to leave Isla Smith in the Red Room until I came to see her myself.”

"Miss Isla screamed so loud, Ma'am," Bessie pleaded.

"Let her go," was the only answer. "Let go of Bessie's hand, child: you cannot get out by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, especially in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour more, and only on the condition of perfect submission and immobility will I then release you.”

"O aunt! please! Forgive me! I cannot stand it—let me be punished in another way! I'll be killed if—”

"Silence! This violence is quite repugnant: "and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was an early actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked at me as a compound of virulent passions, wicked wit and dangerous duplicity.

Bessie and Abbot having withdrawn, Mrs. Reed, impatient with my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, pushed me back sharply and locked me up, without further talk. I heard her sweep; and shortly after she left, I guess I had some kind of crisis: unconsciousness closed the scene.

Chapter-3

The next thing I remember is waking up with the feeling of having had a terrible nightmare, and seeing in front of me a terrible red glow, crossed by thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if suffocated by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty and a predominant sense of terror confused my faculties. For a long time, I became aware that someone was manipulating me; lifting and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or supported before. I rested my head against a pillow or arm, and I felt easy.

In five more minutes, the cloud of perplexity dissolved: I knew very well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glow was the fire of the nursery. It was dark: a candle was burning on the table; Bessie stood at the foot of the bed with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat on a chair by my pillow, leaning over me.

I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and safety, when I knew there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning away from Bessie (although her presence was much less unpleasant to me than that of the Abbot, for example), I scrutinized the gentleman's face: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called by Mrs. Reed when the servants were sick: for herself and for the children, she employed a doctor.

"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 will do very well by-and-by. Then he put me to bed, and addressing Bessie, asked her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. After giving further instructions, and responding that he should call again the next day, he left; to my pain: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair by my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, the whole room darkened and my heart went out.

"Do you feel like you have to sleep, Miss? Bessie asked, rather softly.

Hardly did I dare answer him, for I feared that the next sentence would be harsh. "I'll try.”

"Do you want to drink, or could you eat something?”

"No, thank you, Bessie.”

"Then I think I will go to bed, for it is noon; but you can call me if you want something in the night.”

Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.

"Bessie, what's wrong with me? Am I sick?”

"You got sick, I guess, in the Red Room with crying; you will be better soon, no doubt.”

Bessie entered the apartment of the maid, who was nearby. Did I hear him say—

"Sarah, come and sleep with me at the nursery; I do not dare to stay alone with this poor child until night: she could die; it is such a strange thing that she should have this shape: I wonder if she saw something. Lady is a little too hard.”

Sarah returned with her; they both went to bed; they whispered together for half an hour before falling asleep. I caught snippets of their conversation, from which I could only too distinctly deduce the main topic being discussed.

"Something passed to him, all dressed in white, and disappeared— ""a big black dog behind him “-" three loud raps on the bedroom door—” "a light in the cemetery just above his grave", & C. & C.

At last the two slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in a dreadful Eve; strained by dread: a dread that only children can feel.

No serious or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident from the red chamber; it only gave my nerves a shock, the reverberation of which I feel to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, I owe you a few pangs of mental suffering, but I must forgive you, because you did not know what you did: by tearing my heart strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities.

The next day, at noon, I was standing and dressed, sitting and wrapped in a shawl by the nursery foyer. I felt physically weak and broken; but my worst illness was an unspeakable misery of mind: a misery that kept pulling silent tears from me; no sooner had I wiped a drop of salt from my cheek than another followed. Still, I thought I should have been happy, because none of the reeds were there, they were all out in the car with their mom. Abbot, too, sewed in another room, and Bessie, as she moved from here and elsewhere, tidying up toys and arranging drawers, from time to time addressed me with a word of unfeeling kindness. This state of affairs should have been for me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of incessant rebukes and ungrateful fags; but, in fact, my torn nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe them, and no pleasure pleasantly aroused them.

Bessie had gone down into the kitchen, and brought with her a pie on a certain plate of brightly painted porcelain, whose bird of paradise, nestled in a crown of convolvuli and rosebuds, had used to arouse in me a feeling of very enthusiastic admiration; and what plate I had often asked to be allowed to take in my hand for closer examination, but had always been considered unworthy of such a privilege until now. This precious container was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circle of delicate dough that was in it. Vain favour! come, like most other long-delayed and often desired favours, too late! I could not eat the pie; and the plumage of the bird, the hues of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put away the plate and the pie. Bessie asked me if I would have a book: The Word Book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to pick up Gulliver's trips to the library. This book I had read again and again with pleasure. I considered it to be an account of facts, and I discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as for the Elves, after searching in vain among the leaves and bells of the digitalis, under the mushrooms and under the soil-Ivy mantellis old Wall-nooks, I had long made my decision to the sad truth, that they had all left England for a wild country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population leaner; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my belief, solid parts of the surface of the earth, I had no doubt that I might one day, taking a long journey, see with my own eyes the small fields, the houses and trees, the tiny people, the tiny cows, the sheep and the birds of the one kingdom; and the Forest-High corn fields, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand-when I turned over its leaves, and searched in its wonderful images for the charm that I had, hitherto, never failed to find-everything was strange and dreary; the Giants were gaunt Goblins, the pigmies of the malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in the most fearsome and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I no longer dared to read, and put it on the table, next to the unroasted pie.

Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and after washing her hands, she opened a certain small drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began to make a new cap for Georgiana's doll. Meanwhile, she sang: her song was—

"In the days we went gipsying,

A long time ago.”

I had often heard the song before, and always with keen pleasure; for Bessie had a soft voice , - at least, I thought so. But now, even though his voice was still soft, I found in his melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the chorus very low, very long; "a long time ago" came out as the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She moved on to another ballad, this time really sad.

"My feet are sore, and my limbs are tired;

The road is Long and the mountains are wild;

Soon the twilight will close without moon and dreary

On the path of the poor orphan child.

Why did they send me so far and so alone,

Where the Moors spread and where the gray rocks pile up?

Men are hard and kind Angels only

Look at O'er in the footsteps of a poor orphan child.

Yet distant and gentle the night breeze blows,

Clouds there are none, and the stars clear soft beam,

God, in his mercy, protection shows,

Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.

EV'n should I fall O'er the bridge broken passing,

Or wander in the marshes, by false lights seduced,

My father will always do it, with promise and blessing,

Take into her bosom the poor orphan child.

There is a thought that for strength should serve me,

Although both shelter and kindred despoiled;

Heaven is a home, and a rest will not miss me;

God is a friend to the poor orphan child.”

"Come on, Miss Isla, don't cry," said Bessie. She might as well have said to the fire: "don't burn!"but how could she guess the morbid suffering from which I was prey? During the morning, Mr. Lloyd returned.

"What, already standing!"he said, as he entered the manger. "Well, nurse, how is she?”

Bessie replied that I was doing very well.

"Then she should look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Isla: Your Name Is Isla, isn't it?”

"Yes, Sir, Isla Smith.”

"Well, you cried, Miss Isla Smith; can you tell me what it is? Do you have pain?”

"No, sir.”

"Oh! I dare say she cries because she couldn't go out with Missis in the car,” Bessie interjected.

"Surely not! she's too old for such smallness.”

I thought so too; and my self-esteem being hurt by the false accusation, I promptly replied: "I have never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the car. I cry because I'm miserable.”

"Oh fie, Miss!"says Bessie.

The good apothecary seemed a little puzzled. I stood before him; he fixed his eyes on me very regularly: his eyes were small and gray; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them clever now: he had a tough but good-natured face. After considering me at leisure, he said—

"What made you sick yesterday?”

"She Fell," says Bessie, putting her word out again.

"Autumn! why, it's like a new baby! Can't she walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.”

” I was knocked down,” was the frank explanation, shaken from me by another pang of mortified pride; "but it didn't make me sick," I added; While Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.

As he turned the box into his vest pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants ' dinner; he knew what it was. "This is for you, nurse," he said; " You may come down; I will give a lecture to Miss Isla until you return."”

Bessie would have preferred to stay, but she was forced to go, because punctuality at meals was rigorously enforced at Gateshead Hall.

"The fall did not make you sick; what then?"continued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.

"I was locked in a room where there is a ghost until nightfall.”

I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.

"Ghost! What, you're a baby after all! Are you afraid of ghosts?”

"From the ghost of Mr. Reed that I am: he died in this room, and was laid there. Neither Bessie nor anyone else will enter at night, if they can help her; and it was cruel to be silent alone without a candle—- so cruel that I think I will never forget it.”

"Nonsense! And is that what makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in broad daylight?”

"No: but the night will soon return: and besides, - I am unhappy, - very unhappy, for other things.”

"What other things? Can you tell me some of them?”

How much I wanted to fully answer this question! How difficult it was to frame an answer! Children can feel, but they can not analyze their feelings; and if the analysis is partially carried out in thought, they do not know how to express the result of the process in words. Fearing, however, to lose that first and only opportunity to ease my grief by transmitting it, after a disturbed pause, I managed to frame a meager, but, as far as it went, true answer.

"On the one hand, I have no father or mother, no brothers or sisters.”

"You have a nice aunt and cousins.”

Again, I stopped; then stated brilliantly—

"But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt locked me in the Red Room.”

Mr. Lloyd produced his Snuff Box a second time.

"Don't you think Gateshead Hall is a very beautiful home? he asked. "Aren't you very grateful to have such a beautiful place to live?”

"This is not my house, sir; and the Abbot says that I have less right to be here than a servant.”

"Little! can't you be stupid enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?”

"If I had somewhere else to go, I would be happy to leave it; but I can never move away from Gateshead until I am a woman.”

"Maybe you can-who knows? Do you have a relationship with Mrs. Reed?”

"I don't think so, Sir.”

"No belonging to your father?”

"I don't know. I once asked Aunt Reed, and she said that I could have poor, low relationships called Smith, but she knew nothing about them.”

"If you had one, would you like to go to their house?”

I've been thinking. Poverty seems bleak for adults; even more so for children: they have little idea of industrious, hardworking and respectable poverty; they think of the word only as related to tattered clothes, lean food, fireless grills, rude manners and degrading vices: poverty was for me synonymous with degradation.

"No, I would not belong to poor people," he replied.

"Not even if they were nice to you?”

I shook my head: I could not see how the poor could afford to be kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women whom I sometimes saw nursing their children or washing their clothes at the gates of The Cottages of the village of Gateshead: No, I was not heroic enough to buy freedom at the cost of caste.

"But are your parents so poor? Are they working people?”

"I can't say it; aunt Reed says that if I have any, they must be a beggar set: I wouldn't go begging.”

"Would you like to go to school?”

Again, I think: I barely knew what school was; Bessie sometimes referred to it as a place where young girls sat in stocks, wore boards and had to be extremely distinguished and accurate: John Reed hated his school and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were not a rule to mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school discipline (collected from young girls in a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of some of the achievements made by those same girls were, I thought, equally appealing. She boasted beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers that they executed; songs they could sing and plays they could play, handbags they could net, French books they could translate; until my mind was moved to emulation by listening. In addition, the school would be a complete change: it involved a long journey, a complete separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.

"I would really like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my reflections.

"Well, well! who knows what can happen?"said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. "The child should change air and scene," he added, addressing himself; " the nerves are not in good condition.”

Bessie returned now; at the same time, the car was heard rolling on the gravel.

"Is this your mistress, nurse?"asked Mr. Lloyd. "I'd like to talk to him before I leave.”

Bessie invited him into the breakfast room and opened the way for him. In the subsequent interview between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from the events, that the apothecary ventured to recommend that I be sent to school; and the recommendation was probably fairly easily adopted; for, as Abbot said, discussing the subject with Bessie when they were both sitting sewing in the crib one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared to say, happy enough to get rid of such a tiring, poorly conditioned child, who always seemed to look at everyone, and"Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a kind of Infantin Guy Fawkes.

On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the will of her friends, who considered the match under her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated by her disobedience, that he had cut it without a shilling.; that after my mother and father were married a year, the latter caught typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing city where his cure was located, and where this disease was then widespread: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

Bessie, when she heard this account, sighed and said “ " Poor Miss Isla must be pity, too, Abbot.”

"Yes," replied The Abbot; " if she were a beautiful and pretty child, we could sympathize with her for her sadness; but we really cannot take care of such a small Toad."”

"Not much, of course," Bessie nodded: "in any case, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same state.”

"Yes, I pay attention to miss Georgiana!"cried the fervent Abbot. "Little darling!- with her long curls and blue eyes, and such a soft color that she has; as if she were painted!- Bessie, I'd like a Welsh rabbit for dinner.”

"For me—with a roast of onion. Come on, we'll go down."They went.

Chapter-4

From my speech with Mr. Lloyd, and from the conference reported above between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough hope to be sufficient as a reason for wanting to heal: a change seemed near, - I wanted it and waited for it in silence. Days and weeks passed: I had returned to my normal state of health, but no new reference was made to the subject on which I was smoldering. Mrs. Reed questioned me at times with a stern eye, but rarely addressed me: since my illness, she had drawn a sharper line of separation than ever between me and her own children; naming me a small closet to sleep alone, condemning me to eat my meals alone, and to spend all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the living room. Not a hint, however, did she drop out about sending me to school: I still felt an instinctive certainty that she would not endure me for long under the same roof with her; for his gaze, now more than ever, when it was turned on me, expressed an insurmountable and ingrained aversion.

Eliza and Georgiana, obviously acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue into his cheek every time he saw me, and once attempted punishment; but as I immediately turned against him, awakened by the same feeling of deep ire and desperate revolt that had aroused my corruption before, he thought that it was better to abstain, and ran from me, titling executions, and swearing that I had burst his nose. I had indeed leveled at this important feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that this or my gaze discouraged him, I had the greatest propensity to follow my advantage on purpose; but he was already with his mom. I heard him in a talkative tone start the story of how 'that nasty Isla Smith' had robbed him like a mad cat: he was arrested pretty hard—

"Do not tell me about her, John: I told you not to come near her; she is not worthy of being noticed; I do not choose that you or your sisters go with her.”

Here, leaning on the ramp, I screamed suddenly, and without deliberating at all about my words—

"They are not fit to associate with me.”

Mrs. Reed was rather a robust woman; but, hearing this strange and bold statement, she ran nimbly up the stairs, swept me like a whirlwind into the manger, and crushed me on the edge of my manger, dared me in an emphatic voice to get up from that place, or utter a syllable for the rest of the day.

"What would Uncle Reed say to you if he were alive?"was my barely voluntary request. I hardly say voluntary, because it seemed that my tongue uttered words without my will consent to their utterance: something spoke of me over which I had no control.

"What?Mrs. Reed said under her breath: her usually cold gray eye was troubled with an air of fear; she took her hand from my arm, and looked at me as if she really did not know whether I was a child or a demon. I was now in for it.

"My uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see everything you do and think; and dad and mom too: they know how you silence me all day, and how you wish me dead.”

Mrs. Reed quickly came to her senses: she shook me very deeply, she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie provided the hiatus with an hour-long homily, in which she proved beyond doubt that I was the meanest and most abandoned child ever raised under a roof. I believed her half-hearted; for I only felt bad feelings arise in my chest.

November, December and half of January died. Christmas and New Year had been celebrated in Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; gifts had been exchanged, dinners and parties given. From all enjoyment, I was, of course, excluded: my part of cheerfulness was to witness the Daily apparatus of Eliza and Georgiana, and to see them descend to the salon, dressed in thin chiffon dresses and Scarlet belts, with finely rimmed hair; and then, listening to the sound of the piano or harp played below, the back and forth of the Butler and footman, the tinkling of glass and porcelain as refreshments were distributed, the broken hum of conversation as the living room door opened and closed. Tired of this occupation, I retreated from the head of stairs to the solitary and silent nursery: there, although a little sad, I was not miserable. To tell the truth, I did not have the slightest desire to go in company, because in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had been kind and compassionate, I should have considered it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young daughters, used to go to the bustling areas of the kitchen and the housekeeper's room, usually carrying the candle with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee until the fire was low, glancing occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than me haunted the dark room; and when the embers sank into a dull red, I hurriedly undressed, pulling on the knots and ropes as I could, and sheltered myself from the cold and darkness in my crib. To this cradle, I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the lack of more worthy objects of affection, I managed to find a pleasure to love and cherish a faded trimmed image, shabby like a miniature Scarecrow. It breaks my head now to remember with what absurd sincerity I did on this little toy, half fantasizing about it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded into my night dress; and when it was there safe and warm, I was relatively happy, believing that it was happy likewise.

The hours seemed long as I waited for the company to leave, and I listened to the sound of Bessie walking down the stairs: sometimes she would go up in the meantime to get her thimble or scissors, or maybe to bring me something for supper—a bun or a cheesecake-then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I was done, she would tuck the clothes around me, and twice she would kiss me, and say: “good night, Miss Isla."When she was so sweet, Bessie seemed to me the best, the prettiest, the kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so nice and kind, and never push me, or scold me, or load me unreasonably, as she was all too often used to doing. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural ability, for she was intelligent in everything she did, and had a remarkable talent for storytelling; so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my memories of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a thin young woman, with dark hair, dark eyes, very beautiful features and a good fair complexion; but she had a temperamental and hasty disposition, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice: yet, as she was, I preferred her to someone else at Gateshead Hall.

It was the fifteenth of January, around nine o'clock in the morning: Bessie had gone down for breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mother's; Eliza put on her hat and her warm garden coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation she was fond of: not least to sell the eggs to the housekeeper and to raise the money she obtained in this way. She had a turn for traffic and a marked propensity to save; shown not only in the sale of eggs and chickens, but also in the conduct of good business with the gardener on the roots of flowers, seeds and leaflets of plants; this official having received the order of Mrs. Reed to buy from his young wife all the products of her flowerbed that she wanted to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair of her head if she had been able to make a nice profit as well. As for her money, she first secreted it in strange corners, wrapped in a rag or old curly paper; but some of these treasures having been discovered by the maid, Eliza, fearing that one day she would lose her precious treasure, consented to the intruder to her mother, at a usurious interest rate-fifty or sixty percent.; what interest she demanded every quarter, keeping her accounts in a small book with anxious accuracy.

Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair to the glass and intertwining her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I made my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to have it arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a kind of undernourer, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, etc.). After spreading out the quilt and folding my night gown, I went to the window seat to put in order a few picture books and dollhouse furniture scattered there; a sudden order from Georgiana to leave her toys alone (as the little chairs and mirrors, fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my work.; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathe on the frost flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I could look at the field, where everything was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost.

From this window were visible the Porter's Lodge and carriage road, and just as I had dissolved much of the silvery-white foliage veiling the windows as leaving room to look out, I saw the doors open and a cart rolling through. I watched him ride the drive with indifference; cars often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors who interested me; he stopped in front of the house, the door bell rang loudly, the newcomer was admitted. All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found a more vivid attraction in the spectacle of a hungry little Robin, who came and chirped on the twigs of the leafless cherry tree nailed to the wall near the casement. The remnants of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and after crumbling a piece of roll, I was pulling on the belt to extinguish the crumbs on the windowsill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.

"Miss Isla, take off your pinafore; what are you doing here? Did you wash your hands and face this morning?"I gave another tug before answering, because I wanted the bird to be sure of his bread: the belt gave way; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone threshold, others on the cherry branch, and then, closing the window, I answered—

"No, Bessie; I just finished dusting.”

"Troublesome and careless child! and what are you doing now? You look pretty red, as if you had been about some mischief: why were you opening the window?”

I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed too eager to listen to the explanations; she carried me to the sink, rubbed me mercilessly, but fortunately briefly, on the face and hands with soap, water and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristling brush, stripped me of my pinafore, then hurried me to the top of the stairs, told me to go straight down, as I was wanted in the breakfast room.

I would have asked who wanted me; I would have asked if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie had already left, and had closed the nursery door on me. I went down slowly. For almost three months I had never been called to Mrs. Reed's presence; so long confined to the nursery, the breakfast, the dining room and the living rooms had become horrible areas for me, over which I was dismayed to interfere.

I stood now in the empty room; in front of me was the door to the breakfast room, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little poltroon was afraid, begotten of an unjust punishment, made of me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go to the parlor; ten minutes I remained in Restless hesitation; the vehement ringing of the bell of the breakfast room decided me; I had to enter.

"Who would want me?"I asked internally, as with both hands I turned the rigid door handle, which for a second or two resisted my efforts. "What should I see except aunt Reed in the apartment?- a man or a woman?"The handle turned, the door not closed, and passing through and bending down, I looked up—a black pillar!- such, at least, appeared to me, at first glance, the straight, narrow, sand-clad form standing on the carpet: the dark face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the STEM as capital.

Mrs. Reed took her usual seat by the fire; she beckoned me to approach; I did, and she introduced me to the Stony stranger with the words: “here is the little girl I have applied to you.”

He, for he was a man, slowly turned his head to the place where I stood, and after examining me with the two curious gray eyes that twinkled under a pair of bushy eyebrows, said solemnly, and in a low voice: "his height is small: How old is he?”

“Decadal.”

"At this point?"was the dubious answer; and he extended his review for a few minutes. At this moment he addressed me - " Your Name, little girl?”

"Isla Smith, Sir.”

Speaking these words, I looked up: he seemed to me a great gentleman; but then I was very small; his features were great, and they and all the lines of his frame were equally hard and prim.

"Well, Isla Smith, and are you a good kid?”

Impossible to answer in the affirmative: my little world had a contrary opinion: I was silent. Ms. Reed replied with an expressive tremor of her head, soon adding, "" perhaps the less we say on this subject, the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.”

"Sorry, indeed, to hear it! she and I need to have a discussion; " and leaning from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the chair in front of Mrs. Reed. "come here," he said.

I crossed the carpet; he placed me square and straight in front of him. What a face he had, now that he was almost on the same level as mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what great prominent teeth!

"No sight as sad as that of an ugly child,“ he began," especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the bad guys go after death?”

"They go to hell," was my ready and Orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?”

"A pit full of fire.”