CHAPTER XXI 294
The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame . Turning restlessly , she drew the bedclothes round her ; my elbow , resting on a corner of the quilt , fixed it down : she was at once irritated .
" Sit up !" said she ; " don ' t annoy me with holding the clothes fast . Are you Jane Eyre ?"
" I am Jane Eyre ."
" I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe . Such a burden to be left on my hands -- and so much annoyance as she caused me , daily and hourly , with her incomprehensible disposition , and her sudden starts of temper , and her continual , unnatural watchings of one ' s movements ! I declare she talked to me once like something mad , or like a fiend -- no child ever spoke or looked as she did ; I was glad to get her away from the house . What did they do with her at Lowood ? The fever broke out there , and many of the pupils died . She , however , did not die : but I said she did -- I wish she had died !"
" A strange wish , Mrs . Reed ; why do you hate her so ?"
" I had a dislike to her mother always ; for she was my husband ' s only sister , and a great favourite with him : he opposed the family ' s disowning her when she made her low marriage ; and when news came of her death , he wept like a simpleton . He would send for the baby ; though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance . I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it -- a sickly , whining , pining thing ! It would wail in its cradle all night long -- not screaming heartily like any other child , but whimpering and moaning . Reed pitied it ; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own : more , indeed , than he ever noticed his own at that age . He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar : the darlings could not bear it , and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike . In his last illness , he had it brought continually to his bedside ; and but an hour before he died , he bound me by vow to keep the creature . I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse :