and Mrs Reed rushed into the room with our nursemaid Bessie and another maid Abbot Take her away to the red room Mrs Reed said Lock her in there I was dragged upstairs and locked in The red room was kept clean but never used anymore The servants were a bit afraid of it and I was terrifi ed This was the very room where Mr Reed had died many years before Mr Reed was my uncle He was the one who insisted I be brought to live with them when my parents died of typhus fever On his deathbed he had made Mrs Reed swear to raise me as her own It was that promise that froze my blood now Mrs Reed had surely broken it I lived there but she hated me and her children tormented me Would Mr Reed now see their treatment and come back from the grave The very thought of the cold hand of comfort from a ghost made my heart race in my chest 6
The room was dark from the cloudy day Bessie had left me a lantern and the fl ickering glow cast shadows that danced on the walls like a vision from another world I heard rushing in my head and knew it to be wings I felt something near me I ran to the door and fl ung myself against it kicking and pounding and screaming Miss Eyre are you ill Bessie asked when she opened the door Let me out I begged I saw a light A ghost What is this Mrs Reed stormed along the corridor I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red room until I came to her myself She screamed so loud ma’am Bessie pleaded Oh Aunt have pity Forgive me I begged I cannot endure it Silence she snapped You will stay here an hour longer until you can be perfectly still She thrust me back into the room and locked me in 8
Then with my back against the door and the darkness of the room closing in around me I passed out I awoke in my own bed Bessie stood nearby with the man who was sometimes called when the servants were sick Do you know who I am he asked I nodded and said Mr Lloyd Do you have any pain Can you tell me what happened to make you ill She had a fall Bessie said I was knocked down I told him insulted by the suggestion that I was a clumsy child who fell down But that didn’t make me ill I was shut up in a dark room where there is a ghost A ghost Mr Lloyd said with a smile You are afraid of ghosts Of Mr Reed’s ghost I am None of the servants will go into that room in the dark but they shut me up in there It was cruel Mr Lloyd continued to ask questions I told him that I was an orphan with cousins who 9
