Chapter-1
Jane Eyre was a little girl. She lived with her parents. Her father was a poor parson. One day, her father caught typhus fever while visiting an area where the disease was prevalent. As a result, her father was confined to bed. Soon, her mother also caught infection from her father. Both died within a month of each other. Jane Eyre had now become an orphan. There was none to look after her.
Mr Reed was Jane Eyre’s maternal uncle. When he came to learn about the death of her sister, he brought Jane Eyre to his house at Gateshead where he lived with his wife, Mrs Reed. They had three children—Eliza, John and Georgiana. There was also a nurse in the house. Her name was Bessie. Jane Eyre started living with them.
Mr Reed said to his wife, “O dear! she is Jane Eyre, my sister’s daughter. As you already know, she is dead. Please bring her up as your own child.” Mrs Reed said nothing and went away.
Time rolled by. Mr Reed, Jane Eyre’s maternal uncle, breathed his last one day. Jane Eyre wept bitterly over her maternal uncle’s death. She felt herself alone. She was the apple of her uncle’s eye.
After the death of Mr Reed, Mrs Reed, her children and their nurse, Bessie, became indifferent to Jane Eyre who was humbled by her physical inferiority to Eliza, John and Georgiana. Jane Eyre was not allowed to join the group as Mrs Reed wanted to exclude her from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children. They all made her work all day. They teased her in one way or the other. John Reed, in particular, was very hostile to her. He was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than Jane Eyre for she was but ten. He was large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks.
He ought now to have been at school but his mother had taken him home for a month or two on account of his delicate health. Mr Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home. But his mother’s heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John Reed’s sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining for home. John Reed had not much affection for his mother and sisters. He had an antipathy to Jane Eyre. He bullied and punished her, not two or three times in a week, nor once or twice in a day, but continually. He would catch her by the hair and abuse her.
Every nerve of Jane Eyre had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in her bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when Jane Eyre was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because she had to appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions. The servants did not like to offend their young master by taking the side of Jane Eyre against him. Mrs Reed was completely blind and deaf on the subject. She never saw him or heard him abuse Jane Eyre, though he did both now and again in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.
Habitually obedient to John Reed, Jane Eyre came up to his chair. He spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at her as far as he could without damaging the roots. Jane Eyre knew he would soon strike. While dreading the blow, she mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of John Reed. She wondered if he read that motion in her face, for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. Jane Eyre tottered a little bit. Regaining her equilibrium she retired back a step or two from his chair.
One day, Jane Eyre sitting near an open window was reading a book. All of a sudden, John Reed came there roaring and said, “O mean girl! how dare you touch my book? You have no business to take our books. You are a dependent. You have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do and wear clothes at our mother’s expense. All these bookshelves are mine. All the house belongs to me.”
Saying these words John Reed hurled a book at Jane Eyre. The book hit her and she fell, striking her head against the door and cutting it. Jane Eyre gave out a loud shriek. After some time, she was locked in a bedroom where she fainted. Thus, Jane Eyre was passing hard days at the house of Mrs Reed. Next day, she complained to Mrs Reed against the bad behaviour of John Reed. But Mrs Reed did not pay any heed to what Jane had said.
