CHAPTER III 23
At last both slept : the fire and the candle went out . For me , the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness ; strained by dread : such dread as children only can feel .
No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room ; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day . Yes , Mrs . Reed , to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering , but I ought to forgive you , for you knew not what you did : while rending my heart-strings , you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities .
Next day , by noon , I was up and dressed , and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth . I felt physically weak and broken down : but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind : a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears ; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed . Yet , I thought , I ought to have been happy , for none of the Reeds were there , they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama . Abbot , too , was sewing in another room , and Bessie , as she moved hither and thither , putting away toys and arranging drawers , addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness . This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace , accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging ; but , in fact , my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe , and no pleasure excite them agreeably .
Bessie had been down into the kitchen , and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate , whose bird of paradise , nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds , had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration ; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely , but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege . This precious vessel was now placed on my knee , and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it . Vain favour ! coming , like most other favours long deferred and often wished for , too late ! I could not eat the tart ; and the plumage of the bird , the tints of the flowers , seemed strangely faded : I put both plate and tart away . Bessie asked if I would have a book :