I was met at the lodge by Bessie, now married with three children, who welcomed me warmly before accompanying me up to the hall. My cousins Eliza and Georgiana received me with cold, condescending formality: Eliza, severe and ascetic, barely acknowledged me, while Georgiana, plump and vain, obsessed with London society, measured me from head to foot with thinly veiled contempt. I was unmoved, my focus fixed on my dying aunt. I passed the time sketching, drawing a portrait of Rochester from memory that Eliza inquired about and Georgiana called an ugly man, then offered to sketch their portraits to warm their attitude. Georgiana, pleased, told me of her London romances, while Eliza remained cold, focused on her routine of prayer, embroidery for the new church altar, and plans to enter a strict religious order after her mother’s death, cutting Georgiana off completely for her idle ways.
I insisted on being shown to Mrs. Reed’s sickroom, where I found the once imperious woman still stern and unyielding, pulling her hand away when I bent to kiss her. Over the following days, she ranted about the burden I had been as a child, her hatred of my mother, and her fury at my violent outburst as a ten-year-old. She confessed that after my uncle had written from Madeira asking for my address so he could adopt me and leave me his fortune, she had lied and told him I had died of typhus at Lowood, refusing to let me rise above her. She admitted she had hated me my entire life, and even as she lay dying, could not bring herself to forgive or show me kindness. I offered her full forgiveness, but she rejected it, lapsing into stupor and dying a few days later without reconciling. Eliza was calm and unmoved, surveying her mother’s corpse without a tear, and followed through with her plan to distance herself from Georgiana. Georgiana only wept for the inconvenience of mourning, not for her mother’s death. I left Gateshead with a somber understanding of the cost of a life spent in bitterness and hatred, and the quiet peace of having offered forgiveness even when it was not accepted.
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