CHAPTER I There was no possibility of taking a walk that day .
We had been wandering , indeed , in the leafless shrubbery an hour 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 sombre , and a rain so penetrating , that further out-door exercise was now out of the question .
I was glad of it : I never liked long walks , especially on chilly afternoons : dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight , with nipped fingers and toes , and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie , the nurse , and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza , John , and Georgiana Reed .
The said Eliza , John , and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room : she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside , and with her darlings about her ( for the time neither quarrelling nor crying ) looked perfectly happy .
Me , she had dispensed from joining the group ; saying , " She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance ; but that until she heard from Bessie , and could discover by her own observation , that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition , a more attractive and sprightly manner -- something lighter , franker , more natural , as it were -- she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented , happy , little children . "
" What does Bessie say I have done ? "
I asked .
" Jane , I do n't like cavillers or questioners ; besides , there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner .
Be seated somewhere ; and until you can speak pleasantly , remain silent . "
A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room , I slipped in there .
It contained a bookcase : I soon possessed myself of a volume , taking care that it should be one stored with pictures .
I mounted into the window - seat : gathering up my feet , I sat cross-legged , like a Turk ; and , having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close , I was shrined in double retirement .
Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand ; to the left were the clear panes of glass , protecting , but not separating me from the drear November day .
At intervals , while turning over the leaves of my book , I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon .
Afar , it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud ; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub , with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast .
I returned to my book -- Bewick 's History of British Birds : the letterpress thereof I cared little for , generally speaking ; and yet there were certain introductory pages that , child as I was , I could not pass quite as a blank .
They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl ; of " the solitary rocks and promontories " by them only inhabited ; of the coast of Norway , studded with isles from its southern extremity , the Lindeness , or Naze , to the North Cape -- " Where the Northern Ocean , in vast whirls , Boils round the naked , melancholy isles Of farthest Thule ; and the Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides . "
Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland , Siberia , Spitzbergen , Nova Zembla , Iceland , Greenland , with " the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone , and those forlorn regions of dreary space , -- that reservoir of frost and snow , where firm fields of ice , the accumulation of centuries of winters , glazed in Alpine heights above heights , surround the pole , and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold . "
Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own : shadowy , like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children 's brains , but strangely impressive .
The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes , and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray ; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast ; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking .
I can not tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard , with its inscribed headstone ; its gate , its two trees , its low horizon , girdled by a broken wall , and its newly-risen crescent , attesting the hour of eventide .
The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea , I believed to be marine phantoms .
The fiend pinning down the thief 's pack behind him , I passed over quickly : it was an object of terror .
So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock , surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows .
Each picture told a story ; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings , yet ever profoundly interesting : as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings , when she chanced to be in good humour ; and when , having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth , she allowed us to sit about it , and while she got up Mrs. Reed 's lace frills , and crimped her nightcap borders , fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken 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 then happy : happy at least in my way .
I feared nothing but interruption , and that came too soon .
The breakfast - room door opened .
" Boh !
Madam Mope ! "
cried the voice of John Reed ; then he paused : he found the room apparently empty .
" Where the dickens is she ! "
he continued .
" Lizzy !
Georgy !
( calling to his sisters ) Joan is not here : tell mama she is run out into the rain -- bad animal ! "
" It is well I drew the curtain , " thought I ; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place : nor would John Reed have found it out himself ; he was not quick either of vision or conception ; but Eliza just put her head in at the door , and said at once -- " She is in the window-seat , to be sure , Jack . "
And I came out immediately , for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack .
" What do you want ? "
I asked , with awkward diffidence .
" Say , ' What do you want , Master Reed ? ' "
was the answer .
" I want you to come here ; " and seating himself in an arm-chair , he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him .
John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old ; four years older than I , for I was but ten : 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 mama 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 the mother 's heart turned from an opinion so harsh , and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John 's sallowness was owing to over-application and , perhaps , to pining after home .
John had not much affection for his mother and sisters , and an antipathy to me .
He bullied and punished me ; not two or three times in the week , nor once or twice in the day , but continually : every nerve I had feared him , and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near .
There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired , because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions ; 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 strike or heard him abuse me , though he did both now and then in her very presence , more frequently , however , behind her back .
Habitually obedient to John , I came up to his chair : he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots : I knew he would soon strike , and while dreading the blow , I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it .
I wonder if he read that notion in my face ; for , all at once , without speaking , he struck suddenly and strongly .
I tottered , and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair .
" That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since , " said he , " and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains , and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since , you rat ! "
Accustomed to John Reed 's abuse , I never had an idea of replying to it ; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult .
" What were you doing behind the curtain ? "
he asked .
" I was reading . "
" Show the book . "
I returned to the window and fetched it thence .
" You have no business to take our books ; you are a dependent , mama says ; 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 mama 's expense .
Now , I 'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves : for they _ are _ mine ; all the house belongs to me , or will do in a few years .
Go and stand by the door , out of the way of the mirror and the windows . "
I did so , not at first aware what was his intention ; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it , I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm : not soon enough , however ; the volume was flung , it hit me , and I fell , striking my head against the door and cutting it .
The cut bled , the pain was sharp : my terror had passed its climax ; other feelings succeeded .