My Mr. Rochester by L. K. Rigel Read Free Book Online

Temple?”
    “Most certainly, bishop.” Miss Temple answered out of duty, but not with the bishop’s fervor. “A girl or any person.”
    “Remove the dress.”
    I gasped, and my hand flew to my throat. I must have heard him incorrectly, for Miss Temple showed no sign of anything being out of order.
    “You have a uniform,” he said to her.
    “Yes, bishop.” Miss Temple retrieved the dress and pinafore she’d laid aside.
    “Take off that dress, Jane Eyre. I’ll return it to Mrs. Reed.”
    “Sir, perhaps she could change in my—”
    “Miss Temple, I have no time for false modesty or girlish pride. Jane Eyre, do as I say. You were there when your good aunt pleaded with me to teach you humility. From the pride you now take in material frippery, I can see she was right.”
    My face went hot with embarrassment and fury. How dare he! My fingers trembled as I unfastened the top button at my collar. Miss Temple stared at her hands, her expression indecipherable.
    I faltered at the second button, and the bishop brushed my hands away and began to do the work for me. I trembled with rage as he proceeded to undress me—rage and some fear, I admit. He fumbled with the buttons at my sternum, and the knuckles of his hands pressed against my breasts. When he’d opened the garment past my waist, he pushed it back over my shoulders. His gaze lingered at the swell of my breasts at the top of my chemise. For a horrible moment, I thought he was going to touch me.
    He stepped away. “You may complete the task. Those boots too. Far too unsuitable.” He addressed Miss Temple. “The box?”
    I handed Bishop Brocklehurst my dress and quickly bent down to unlace my boots. Miss Temple dropped a box of secondhand shoes at my feet. I kept my head down to hide my tears. I’d give him no satisfaction. I tossed my boots in Brocklehurst’s direction and turned away toward the fire, surreptitiously wiping my eyes.
    Miss Temple was at me in a flash with the uniform. She gently wrapped it around me and found the hole for its inset belt. “It’s a little big now, Jane,” she murmured, “but you’ll grow into it.”
    There were no buttons, no hooks, not even a zipper. The dress was made for no one in particular, designed to wrap and tie in order to expand or contract to a wearer’s growing frame. Miss Temple helped me with the pinafore. It felt like she was a dresser in a theater, and I’d been cast the part of a ten-year-old child in a play.
    I was the little princess who’d lost everything—except I’d had no father, no protector, to begin with.
    Bishop Brocklehurst added my lovely hat and scarf to his plunder. When he’d gone for good, Miss Temple called for Miss Miller and instructed her to show me to my bed in a dormitory in one of the large buildings.
    I don’t remember if the wind howled through the trees that night or the rain raged against the dormitory’s window pane. I don’t remember if I was awakened several times by girls crying softly in their beds. I don’t remember if my teeth chattered with cold because my blanket was so thin. All those details are part of the memory mosaic contained in my brain, labeled Lowood. None set the first night apart from any night I spent there.
    But I will never forget Bishop Brocklehurst’s assault on me, an experience distinct and fixed. He had risen to the top of my list. I hated him then more than I hated Mrs. Reed and more even than John Reed. I believed it was impossible to hate him more.
    I was wrong.

« Chapter 7 »
Helen
    Lowood was electrified in ways that made me loathe the invention. When the Great Secession restored a slower, simpler life more suited to human dignity, someone forgot to tell Lowood’s administrators. If electricity was used like this in the heathen old country, it’s no wonder the old country cracked up.
    A caustic unceasing bell drove me from sleep, and the dormitory glared with unnatural fluorescent light. Other girls were out of bed, putting on