CHAPTER XXI 289
Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about -- setting out the tea-tray with her best china , cutting bread and butter , toasting a tea-cake , and , between whiles , giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push , just as she used to give me in former days . Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks .
Tea ready , I was going to approach the table ; but she desired me to sit still , quite in her old peremptory tones . I must be served at the fireside , she said ; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast , absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair : and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days .
She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall , and what sort of a person the mistress was ; and when I told her there was only a master , whether he was a nice gentleman , and if I liked him . I told her he was rather an ugly man , but quite a gentleman ; and that he treated me kindly , and I was content . Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house ; and to these details Bessie listened with interest : they were precisely of the kind she relished .
In such conversation an hour was soon gone : Bessie restored to me my bonnet , & c ., and , accompanied by her , I quitted the lodge for the hall . It was also accompanied by her that I had , nearly nine years ago , walked down the path I was now ascending . On a dark , misty , raw morning in January , I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart -- a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation -- to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood : that bourne so far away and unexplored . The same hostile roof now again rose before me : my prospects were doubtful yet ; and I had yet an aching heart . I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth ; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers , and less withering dread of oppression . The gaping wound of my wrongs , too , was now quite healed ; and the flame of resentment extinguished .
" You shall go into the breakfast-room first ," said Bessie , as she preceded me through the hall ; " the young ladies will be there ."