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简爱(英文版)-第章

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“Then she ought to look more cheerful。 e here; Miss Jane: your name is Jane; is it not?”
“Yes; sir; Jane Eyre。”
“Well; you have been crying; Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?”
“No; sir。”
“Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage;” interposed Bessie。
“Surely not! why; she is too old for such pettishness。”
I thought so too; and my self…esteem being wounded by the false charge; I answered promptly; “I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage。 I cry because I am miserable。”
“Oh fie; Miss!” said Bessie。
The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled。 I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey; not very bright; but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard…featured yet good…natured looking face。 Having considered me at leisure; he said—
“What made you ill yesterday?”
“She had a fall;” said Bessie; again putting in her word。
“Fall! why; that is like a baby again! Can’t she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old。”
“I was knocked down;” was the blunt explanation; jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride; “but that did not make me ill;” I added; while Mr。 Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff。
As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket; a loud bell rang for the servants’ dinner; he knew what it was。 “That’s for you; nurse;” said he; “you can go down; I’ll give Miss Jane a lecture till you e back。”
Bessie would rather have stayed; but she was obliged to go; because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall。
“The fall did not make you ill; what did; then?” pursued Mr。 Lloyd when Bessie was gone。
“I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark。”
I saw Mr。 Lloyd smile and frown at the same time。
“Ghost! What; you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?”
“Of Mr。 Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room; and was laid out there。 Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night; if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle;—so cruel that I think I shall never forget it。”
“Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?”
“No: but night will e again before long: and besides;—I am unhappy;—very unhappy; for other things。”
“What other things? Can you tell me some of them?”
How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel; but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought; they know not how to express the result of the process in words。 Fearful; however; of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it; I; after a disturbed pause; contrived to frame a meagre; though; as far as it went; true response。
“For one thing; I have no father or mother; brothers or sisters。”
“You have a kind aunt and cousins。”
Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced—
“But John Reed knocked me down; and my aunt shut me up in the red… room。”
Mr。 Lloyd a second time produced his snuff…box。
“Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?” asked he。 “Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?”
“It is not my house; sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant。”
“Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?”
“If I had anywhere else to go; I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman。”
“Perhaps you may—who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs。 Reed?”
“I think not; sir。”
“None belonging to your father?”
“I don’t know。 I asked Aunt Reed once; and she said possibly I might have some poor; low relations called Eyre; but she knew nothing about them。”
“If you had such; would you like to go to them?”
I reflected。 Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious; working; respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes; scanty food; fireless grates; rude manners; and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation。
“No; I should not like to belong to poor people;” was my reply。
“Not even if they were kind to you?”
I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them; to adopt their manners; to be uneducated; to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no; I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste。
“But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?”
“I cannot tell; Aunt。 Reed says if I have any; they must be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a begging。”
“Would you like to go to school?”
Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks; wore backboards; and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John Reed hated his school; and abused his master; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine; and if Bessie’s accounts of school…discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before ing to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling; her details of certain acplishments attained by these same young ladies were; I thought; equally attractive。 She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play; of purses they could ; of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened。 Besides; school would be a plete change: it implied a long journey; an entire separation from Gateshead; an entrance into a new life。
“I should indeed like to go to school;” was the audible conclusion of my musings。
“Well; well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr。 Lloyd; as he got up。 “The child ought to have change of air and scene;” he added; speaking to himself; “nerves n
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