CHAPTER XXI 293
hate ! and how the recollection of childhood ' s terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now ! And yet I stooped down and kissed her : she looked at me .
" Is this Jane Eyre ?" she said . " Yes , Aunt Reed . How are you , dear aunt ?"
I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again : I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now . My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet : had she pressed mine kindly , I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure . But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened , nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated . Mrs . Reed took her hand away , and , turning her face rather from me , she remarked that the night was warm . Again she regarded me so icily , I felt at once that her opinion of me -- her feeling towards me -- was unchanged and unchangeable . I knew by her stony eye -- opaque to tenderness , indissoluble to tears -- that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last ; because to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure : only a sense of mortification .
I felt pain , and then I felt ire ; and then I felt a determination to subdue her -- to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will . My tears had risen , just as in childhood : I ordered them back to their source . I brought a chair to the bed-head : I sat down and leaned over the pillow .
" You sent for me ," I said , " and I am here ; and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on ."
" Oh , of course ! You have seen my daughters ?" " Yes ."
" Well , you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind : to-night it is too late , and I have a difficulty in recalling them . But there was something I wished to say -- let me see -- "