Jane Eyre. Charlotte Bronte

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      CHARLOTTE BRONTË

      JANE EYRE

      JANE EYRE

      Jane Eyre begins life with all the disadvantages that nature and society can give her: she has no parents, no money, she is a girl (in a man’s world), and, to make matters worse, she is not beautiful. She is made even more unattractive, in the eyes of the world, by having a strong character: she will not do what she is told to do.

      She does not sound like the heroine of one of the great love stories of the world, and yet she behaves like one. The world looks at her, with all her disadvantages, and tells her to expect little from life. But Jane Eyre refuses to listen; she refuses to accept the unimportant place that the world offers to her. She demands that the world accept her as she is: not important, but the heroine of her own life; not beautiful, but deserving of love.

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First published in Oxford Bookworms 1990

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ISBN 978 0 19 479262 2

A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Jane Eyre is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 479245 5

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Photographs in this edition are from the 20th Century Fox Film Corporation motion picture Jane Eyre (1944) and feature Peggy Ann Garner, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, Orson Welles, Margaret O’Brien, Jon Abbott, and Hilary Brooke. The publishers have made every effort to contact the copyright holder of the photographs, but have been unable to do so. If the copyright holder would like to contact the publishers, the publishers would be happy to pay an appropriate reproduction fee

Word count (main text): 31,360 words

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      PEOPLE IN THIS STORY

      Jane Eyre

      AT GATESHEAD

      Mrs Reed, Jane Eyre’s aunt

      Bessie, the nursemaid

      Miss Abbott, Mrs Reed’s maid

      Dr Lloyd

      Robert, the coachman

      AT LOWOOD SCHOOL

      Mr Brocklehurst, the school’s financial manager

      Miss Temple, the headmistress

      Helen Burns, a pupil

      AT THORNFIELD

      Mrs Fairfax, the housekeeper

      Adèle, daughter of Mr Rochester’s French mistress

      Edward Rochester, the owner of Thornfield Hall

      Lady Ingram, their mother

      Grace Poole

      Dick Mason

      Mr Briggs, lawyer to Mr Eyre of Madeira

      Bertha Mason

      AT MOOR HOUSE

      St John Rivers, their brother, and vicar of Morton

      Hannah, the housekeeper

      Rosamund Oliver, daughter of a rich factory-owner

      AT FERNDEAN MANOR

      PART ONE

      A CHILD AT GATESHEAD

      1

      THE RED ROOM

      We could not go for a walk that afternoon. There was such a freezing cold wind, and such heavy rain, that we all stayed indoors. I was glad of it. I never liked long walks, especially in winter. I used to hate coming home when it was almost dark, with ice-cold fingers and toes, feeling miserable because Bessie, the nursemaid, was always scolding me. All the time I knew I was different from my cousins, Eliza, John and Georgiana Reed. They were taller and stronger than me, and they were loved.

      These three usually spent their time crying and quarrelling, but today they were sitting quietly around their mother in the sitting-room. I wanted to join the family circle, but Mrs Reed, my aunt, refused. Bessie had complained about me.

      ‘No, I’m sorry, Jane. Until I hear from Bessie, or see for myself, that you are really trying to behave better, you cannot be treated as a good, happy child, like my children.’

      ‘What does Bessie say I have done?’ I asked.

      ‘Jane, it is not polite to question me in that way. If you cannot speak pleasantly, be quiet.’

      I crept out of the sitting-room and into the small room next door, where I chose a book full of pictures from the bookcase. I climbed on to the window-seat and drew the curtains, so that I was completely hidden. I sat there for a while. Sometimes I looked out of the window at the grey November afternoon, and saw the rain pouring down on the leafless garden. But most of the time I studied the book and stared, fascinated, at the pictures. Lost in the world of imagination, I forgot my sad, lonely existence for a while, and was happy. I was only afraid that my secret hiding-place might be discovered.

      Suddenly the door of the room opened. John Reed rushed in.

      ‘Where are you, rat?’ he shouted. He did not see me behind the curtain. ‘Eliza! Georgy! Jane isn’t here! Tell Mamma she’s run out into the rain – what a bad animal she is!’

      ‘How lucky I drew the curtain,’ I thought. He would never have found me, because he was not very intelligent. But Eliza guessed at once where I was.

      ‘She’s in the window-seat, John,’ she called from the sitting-room. So I came out immediately, as I did not want him to pull me out.

      ‘What do you want?’ I asked him.

      ‘Say, “What do you want, Master Reed?”’ he answered, sitting in an armchair. ‘I want you to come here.’

      John Reed was fourteen and I was only ten. He was large and rather fat. He usually ate too much at meals, which made him ill. He should have been at boarding school, but his mother,