The True Confessions of Jane Eyre

Chapter One-2

Nevertheless I felt safe, fearing no insult from this gentleman, and eventually after a journey of several hours I was driven up to the front door of a large stone building of forbidding aspect. This was Birchwood School. The carrier set my box down and drove off. I rang the bell beside the door. Almost immediately it was opened by a stout, middle-aged woman dressed in a grey uniform. I gave her my name and she held the door open for me to enter. I turned towards my box.

“Leave it,” she said. “The boy will fetch it. Follow me.”

She led the way down the corridor. The place smelled of boiled cabbage and furniture polish; perhaps all such institutions have the same odor. She ushered me into a small room in which were a desk, three or four chairs and a filing cabinet. The walls were bare.

“Sit down,” she said. “I am the Matron of this establishment. Listen carefully.”

I took a seat and looked at her expectantly.

“You have been sent here because it is believed you will benefit from the strict discipline we observe. It seems that you have not yet learned the habit of respect for your elders and betters.”

I opened my mouth to protest at this unfair description of my character, but she held up her hand.

“Do not interrupt,” she said sternly. “The rules of this establishment are many, and are strictly enforced. Every girl is given a card in which infringements are recorded. There is an accounting at the end of the week.”

She paused and passed me over a folded piece of paper. I saw that my name was already written on the front.

“Most of the rules you will discover from your fellow pupils. Observe them carefully and do as they do. You will soon learn all the regulations about not talking at meals, not running in the corridor, not talking after lights out, and so forth. What I need to tell you now concerns other, more intimate matters. I know that girls of your age are frequently given to m**********n. This is strictly forbidden; indeed any kind of improper touching of your body is outlawed. And of course, the same is true concerning relations with other girls. No girl is allowed to touch another, not even to hold hands. Is this clear?”

I was taken aback that she should speak so openly of things which most ladies would be ashamed to hear mentioned. I merely nodded.

“I hardly need say that the same applies to the other s*x. You will find that there are some male servants here, and also one or two male teachers. Needless to say, you will not entertain any advances from them; and should you be offered any, it is your duty, under pain of severe punishment, to inform me. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. After my experience with Desmond I had not the least intention of encouraging any men to touch my person.

“Stand up and take your clothes off,” she said.

I was somewhat taken aback by this instruction, but a look at her face assured me that I should comply. I got to my feet and began slowly to unbutton my dress.

“Hurry up,” Matron said. “We don’t dawdle here. Everything is done in double-quick time.”

I removed my dress and stood there in my shift.

“And the rest,” Matron snapped. “All of it.”

I was not used to disrobing in front of another; no one had seen me naked since a very early age. I blushed as I felt the woman’s eyes upon me. I unfastened my stays, pulled off my shift and bent to untie the ribbons round my stockings. I was acutely aware that my breasts were now exposed to view, and I saw Matron looking at them with a keen eye. At that time I had not the least idea that one woman might feel desire for another, otherwise I might have mistrusted this look.

At this point in my story I should say something about my person, since any readers who have progressed this far, and can see what kind of story this is likely to be, are doubtless curious as to what manner of girl I am. I shall be modest. I do not think I have been blessed with great beauty; certainly I have seen many girls who would more conform to the general idea of beauty than I. But at the same time, I have never ceased to attract the eye of the male s*x. I am of average height; my hair, thick and glossy, is dark, a kind of chestnut hue. My breasts, even at eighteen, were well-formed, not large but shapely and firm, with brown n*****s that, if induced in the right way, became enlarged to about the size of gooseberries. My bottom (a part of the body which at that time I had no idea was pleasing to men) is round and smooth and well-proportioned. My face, which is supposed to be every woman’s fortune, I have been told is pleasing, an oval shape, with large green eyes and a wide mouth (perhaps in the view of perfectionists over-wide, but that did not stop men wishing to kiss it). If I could choose, perhaps I would have my nose just a little thinner, but on the whole I am content.

I stood with my arms crossed over my chest, hesitant to remove the final garment.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” Matron said.

Not looking at her, I slid my drawers down over my hips and let them fall to the ground.

“Come and bend over the desk,” she said.

Nervously I stepped forward and did as she said. She stood behind me and I felt her hands take hold of my buttocks and pull them apart. This was by far the most shameful thing anyone had ever done to me, worse even than the outrages of Desmond.

“Please,” I said, “I don’t think…”

“Be quiet,” Matron said.

There was silence. I imagined her staring at my posterior. But for what purpose? Her hands let go of me, but then she touched me again, this time between my legs. I could feel her fingers prizing me apart, and then she inserted a finger in me.

“No,” I cried out. “This is not right!”

For answer, she struck me hard on the bottom with the flat of her hand, not once but twice. Each blow stung me hard.

“I will have silence when I demand it,” she said. “If I hear any more, I shall fetch the cane. And then we’ll see what’s right, won’t we?”

I observed a sullen silence while her fingers probed and pried. I supposed that it was some sort of medical examination; later I realized that she was attempting to assess if I was still a virgin. Eventually she seemed to have seen enough and took her hands away.

“Stand up,” she said. She crossed to a cupboard in the corner and took out some clothes.

“This is your uniform,” she said. “Put it on.”

The garments were few, and very plain. There was a pair of cotton drawers, clean but no longer as white as they once were. There were coarse woolen stockings, held up with tape, and a shift, in the same condition as the drawers. And finally there was a dress, made of grey flannel, with a high neck, buttoning down the front.

I began to put the clothes on. “Are there no stays?” I asked. “Nothing to give me support?”

She eyed my keenly. “It’s true you are very well-developed in that department,” she said, looking directly at my bosom. “I will have to give that some thought. But you can do without in the meantime.”

The dress proved quite tight, which only served to emphasize my bosom and its freedom from constriction. But I said nothing. Matron looked again in the cupboard and brought out a pair of black leather shoes, heavy and ungainly. Fortunately when I put them on they fit well enough.

She handed me a length of black ribbon. “Tie your hair back,” she said. “Hair is to be worn tightly plaited to a single braid. Find a girl to help you.”

Matron picked up a large bell on her desk and rang it loudly. Shortly the door opened and a girl entered, dressed as I now was. She was about my age.

“Anne,” she said, “this is Jane Eyre. Take her under your wing and teach her what she needs to know.”

The girl curtseyed. “Yes, Matron,” she said respectfully.

I followed her out of the room, along the corridor and up some stairs into a dormitory which contained a dozen beds.

“This one is yours,” Anne said, indicating one at the far end of the room. I saw that my box was beside it. I unpacked. Anne showed me where to put my things, then she helped me braid my hair in the approved manner. As she did so, she told me some of the rules I would have to observe.

“No talking at meals,” she said. “No running in the corridor. No talking after lights out. Your dress is always to be neat and tidy. When you speak to one of the teachers, do not look them in the eye, but look modestly downwards. You address the women teachers as ‘Miss’ and the men as ‘Sir’. Marks for bad conduct are entered in your card. At the end of the week they are added up. If you have over thirty it’s a punishment, after which those marks are wiped off. But if there are less than thirty they are carried over into the following week. You can also get marks for bad schoolwork, for clumsiness, like breaking something, for causing trouble with other girls. Lots of things.” Anne sighed. “You are bound to get some punishments eventually.”

“What sort of punishments?” I asked.

“For thirty, it’s the slipper from Matron. But there are special punishments for more serious offences.”

“What sort of offences?” I asked.

“Talking to boys. Kissing other girls. Touching yourself improperly.” Anne blushed.

“So what do you get for that?”

Anne hesitated, as if she didn’t want to think about it.

“What?” I persisted.

“The headmaster will cane you. In public. On the bare.”

“On the bare?”

“The bare bottom,” Anne said.

“Have you ever had it? Is it bad?”

“Never mind about that,” Anne said quickly. “We must get to class.”

She took me into a classroom, where a young man was instructing the class in French. While at Mrs. Reid’s I had been able to give myself some rudimentary education. My reading and writing was quite well advanced, but though I had tried a little French, working on my own I naturally had no idea of the correct pronunciation. I could not make out much of what was going on in the class, but afterwards the teacher, Monsieur Poiret, took me on one side and spoke kindly to me, which encouraged me.

After more lessons, in history then in needlework, it was time for the evening meal. This proved to be a meager affair, little better than the fare I had been used to at Mrs. Reid’s. We sat in silence, supervised by a grim-faced woman whom I subsequently discovered was the mathematics teacher, Miss Williams.

As the meal was ending, there was a general stir. “There’s going to be a punishment,” Anne whispered to me. At one end of the dining hall was a raised platform. A girl, white-faced with fear, was led up onto it by Matron and one of her assistants. The two women pushed her down over a desk, then Matron raised up her dress and pulled her drawers down to her ankles, so that the poor girl’s buttocks were exposed for all to see. Whatever the pain, I thought; surely this humiliation must be just as bad.

The headmaster strode in. He was a thick-set man of about fifty, dressed all in black and wearing a university gown. In his hand he carried a long thin bamboo cane. He turned to us assembled girls and addressed us.

“Charlotte has been discovered performing a lewd act with one of the kitchen boys. The boy has of course been dismissed. Charlotte will now receive an exemplary punishment, which will be a lesson to you all that immorality in any form will not be tolerated here.”

That said, he swished the cane to and fro. There was a low murmur among the seated girls. The headmaster regarded us with a hostile glare, then turned to his task. He swished the cane a few more times, a sound that struck terror into my heart. I had a kind of sickening feeling, a knot in the base of my stomach unlike anything I had felt before. I thought about closing my eyes and ears to the spectacle that was about to be enacted before me, but somehow I could not tear my eyes away.