CHAPTER IV 37
merciless , but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap , water , and a coarse towel ; disciplined my head with a bristly brush , denuded me of my pinafore , and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs , bid me go down directly , as I was wanted in the breakfast-room .
I would have asked who wanted me : I would have demanded if Mrs . Reed was there ; but Bessie was already gone , and had closed the nursery-door upon me . I slowly descended . For nearly three months , I had never been called to Mrs . Reed ' s presence ; restricted so long to the nursery , the breakfast , dining , and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions , on which it dismayed me to intrude .
I now stood in the empty hall ; before me was the breakfast-room door , and I stopped , intimidated and trembling . What a miserable little poltroon had fear , engendered of unjust punishment , made of me in those days ! I feared to return to the nursery , and feared to go forward to the parlour ; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation ; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me ; I MUST enter .
" Who could want me ?" I asked inwardly , as with both hands I turned the stiff door-handle , which , for a second or two , resisted my efforts . " What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment ? -- a man or a woman ?" The handle turned , the door unclosed , and passing through and curtseying low , I looked up at -- a black pillar ! -- such , at least , appeared to me , at first sight , the straight , narrow , sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug : the grim face at the top was like a carved mask , placed above the shaft by way of capital .
Mrs . Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside ; she made a signal to me to approach ; I did so , and she introduced me to the stony stranger with the words : " This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you ."
HE , for it was a man , turned his head slowly towards where I stood , and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows , said solemnly , and in a bass voice , " Her size is small : what is her age ?"