I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed
that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first
month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend
the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say
that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he
did at last.
One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting
with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my
eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure
just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline;
and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included,
rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to
ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured
the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself
had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so
ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways
at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr.
Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower,
and more rigid than ever.
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