Chapter 7 follows Jane through her first winter quarter at Lowood. January through March bring deep snow and impassable roads. The girls have no boots; snow soaks their shoes and their hands and feet swell with chilblains. Food is so scarce that the older girls coax or menace the smaller ones out of their portions; Jane regularly shares her brown bread between two claimants and gives up half her coffee, swallowing the rest with secret tears. Sundays mean a two-mile walk to Brocklebridge Church in winds that almost flay the skin off their faces, with Miss Temple alone walking the drooping line and encouraging the girls to march like stalwart soldiers. Back at school the older girls monopolise the fires; the youngest huddle behind them with starved arms wrapped in their pinafores. The hebdomadal treat is a whole slice of bread with a thin scrape of butter, most of which Jane gives away.
Three weeks in, Mr. Brocklehurst finally appears. Jane has been dreading him because of the verdict Mrs. Reed planted about her character, but his opening conversation with Miss Temple is bureaucratic: thread quality, darning needles, woollen stockings, two clean tuckers a week when the rule says one, and the unauthorised lunch of bread and cheese Miss Temple ordered when the breakfast porridge was inedible. He lectures her that the aim of the school is to render the girls hardy, patient, self-denying; that a spoiled meal is an occasion for spiritual edification, not substitution. Miss Temple's face hardens into marble. Then Brocklehurst spots Julia Severn's red curls, learns they grow that way naturally, and decrees that all top-knots be cut off and a barber sent the next morning. He is interrupted by the arrival of his own wife and daughters, splendid in velvet, silk, ostrich plumes, and false French curls.
Jane has been hiding behind her slate. It slips, crashes to the floor, and every eye turns on her. Miss Temple whispers that she saw it was an accident and Jane will not be punished, but the kindness lands like a dagger because Jane is sure she is about to be exposed as a hypocrite. Brocklehurst hoists her onto a high stool at the level of his nose and addresses the entire school: she is a little castaway, an interloper and an alien, and finally a liar, on the authority of the benefactress who reared her and was forced to send her away. The Brocklehurst ladies dab their eyes and whisper that it is shocking. Jane is sentenced to stand on the stool another half hour while no one is to speak to her. As Brocklehurst's party leaves and Jane's throat tightens, Helen Burns walks past, lifts her eyes, and smiles. The look passes through Jane like strength from a martyr to a slave; she steadies herself, lifts her head, and takes a firm stand on the stool, recognising in Helen, who herself wears the untidy badge and faces bread and water on the morrow, the kind of brightness eyes like Miss Scatcherd's are blind to.
Coming Up in Chapter 8
Ere the half-hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and.
