简.爱 英文版 Jane Eyre
夏洛蒂.勃朗特 Charlotte Bronte
CHAPTER X
Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificantexistence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almostas many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography.I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses willpossess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space ofeight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary tokeep up the links of connection.
When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastationat Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till itsvirulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attentionon the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, andby degrees various facts came out which excited public indignationin a high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantityand quality of the children's food; the brackish, fetid water usedin its preparation; the pupils' wretched clothing and accommodations-- all these things were discovered, and the discovery produceda result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to theinstitution.
Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribedlargely for the erection of a more convenient building in a bettersituation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet andclothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to themanagement of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealthand family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained thepost of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his dutiesby gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: hisoffice of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how tocombine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassionwith uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a trulyuseful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls,after its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two asteacher; and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its valueand importance.
During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy,because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellenteducation placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies,and a desire to excel in all, together with a great delight inpleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: Iavailed myself fully of the advantages offered me. In time I roseto be the first girl of the first class; then I was invested withthe office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years:but at the end of that time I altered.
Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendentof the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part ofmy acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continualsolace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and,latterly, companion. At this period she married, removed withher husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of sucha wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me.
From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was goneevery settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood insome degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of hernature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: whatseemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of mymind. I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet;I believed I was content: to the eyes of others, usually even tomy own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character.
But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came betweenme and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step intoa post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watchedthe chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and thenretired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatestpart of the half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion.
I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myselfonly to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; butwhen my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found thatthe afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discoverydawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone atransforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowedof Miss Temple -- or rather that she had taken with her the sereneatmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity -- and that now Iwas left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirringof old emotions. It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn,but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to betranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity wasno more. My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experiencehad been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the realworld was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, ofsensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to goforth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst itsperils.
I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the twowings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirtsof Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all otherobjects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was thoseI longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heathseemed prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road windinground the base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge betweentwo; how I longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time whenI had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descendingthat hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the daywhich brought me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since.My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had neversent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had everbeen to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or messagewith the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habitsand notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, andpreferences, and antipathies -- such was what I knew of existence.And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine ofeight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty Igasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on thewind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humblersupplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed sweptoff into vague space: "Then, " I cried, half desperate, "grant meat least a new servitude!"
Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.
I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflectionstill bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same roomwith me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by aprolonged effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silenceher. It seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea whichhad last entered my mind as I stood at the window, some inventivesuggestion would rise for my relief.
Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and tillnow her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in anyother light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deepnotes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; myhalf-effaced thought instantly revived.
"A new servitude! There is something in that, " I soliloquised(mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud), "I know thereis, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such wordsas Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; butno more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it ismere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That mustbe matter of fact. Any one may serve: I have served here eightyears; now all I want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so muchof my own will? Is not the thing feasible? Yes -- yes -- the endis not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferretout the means of attaining it. "
I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chillynight; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceededTO THINK again with all my might.
"What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces,under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wantinganything better. How do people do to get a new place? They applyto friends, I suppose: I have no friends. There are many otherswho have no friends, who must look about for themselves and betheir own helpers; and what is their resource?"
I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain tofind a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I feltthe pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hourit worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverishwith vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew thecurtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again creptto bed.
A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestionon my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally tomy mind. -- "Those who want situations advertise; you must advertisein the -shire Herald. "
"How? I know nothing about advertising. "
Replies rose smooth and prompt now:-
This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in mymind; I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, andfell asleep.
With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written,enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school;it ran thus:-
"A young lady accustomed to tuition" (had I not been a teachertwo years?) "is desirous of meeting with a situation in a privatefamily where the children are under fourteen (I thought that as Iwas barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance ofpupils nearer my own age). She is qualified to teach the usualbranches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing,and Music" (in those days, reader, this now narrow catalogue ofaccomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive)."Address, J. E. , Post-office, Lowton, -shire. "
This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea,I asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in orderto perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of myfellow-teachers; permission was readily granted; I went. It was awalk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were stilllong; I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office,and came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but witha relieved heart.
The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however,like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of apleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. Apicturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of thebeck and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day Ithought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaitingme at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms oflea and water.
My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured fora pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when itwas done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street fromthe shoemaker's to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, whowore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands.
"Are there any letters for J. E. ?" I asked.
She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer andfumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopesbegan to falter. At last, having held a document before her glassesfor nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter,accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance-- it was for J. E.
"Is there only one?" I demanded.
"There are no more, " said she; and I put it in my pocket and turnedmy face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me tobe back by eight, and it was already half-past seven.
Various duties awaited me on my arrival. I had to sit with the girlsduring their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers;to see them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers.Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable MissGryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candlein our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till itwas all burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she hadeaten produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring beforeI had finished undressing. There still remained an inch of candle:I now took out my letter; the seal was an initial F. ; I broke it;the contents were brief.
"If J. E. , who advertised in the -shire Herald of last Thursday,possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a positionto give satisfactory references as to character and competency, asituation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a littlegirl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty poundsper annum. J. E. is requested to send references, name, address,and all particulars to the direction:-
"Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, -shire. "
I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned andrather uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstancewas satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thusacting for myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of gettinginto some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of myendeavours to be respectable, proper, en regle. I now felt that anelderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand.Mrs. Fairfax! I saw her in a black gown and widow's cap; frigid,perhaps, but not uncivil: a model of elderly English respectability.Thornfield! that, doubtless, was the name of her house: a neatorderly spot, I was sure; though I failed in my efforts to conceivea correct plan of the premises. Millcote, - shire; I brushed upmy recollections of the map of England, yes, I saw it; both theshire and the town. -shire was seventy miles nearer London thanthe remote county where I now resided: that was a recommendationto me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: Millcotewas a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A-; a busy placeenough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be a completechange at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the ideaof long chimneys and clouds of smoke -- "but, " I argued, "Thornfieldwill, probably, be a good way from the town. "
Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out.
Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer beconfined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achievetheir success. Having sought and obtained an audience of thesuperintendent during the noontide recreation, I told her I had aprospect of getting a new situation where the salary would be doublewhat I now received (for at Lowood I only got 15 pounds per annum);and requested she would break the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst,or some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permitme to mention them as references. She obligingly consented toact as mediatrix in the matter. The next day she laid the affairbefore Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to,as she was my natural guardian. A note was accordingly addressed tothat lady, who returned for answer, that "I might do as I pleased:she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs. " This notewent the round of the committee, and at last, after what appearedto me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better mycondition if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had alwaysconducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, atestimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors ofthat institution, should forthwith be furnished me.
This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwardeda copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady's reply, statingthat she was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the periodfor my assuming the post of governess in her house.
I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly.I had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to mywants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk, -- the same Ihad brought with me eight years ago from Gateshead.
The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half-an-hour thecarrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myselfwas to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach.I had brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet,gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no articlewas left behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down andtried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, Icould not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phaseof my life was closing to-night, a new one opening to-morrow:impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishlywhile the change was being accomplished.
"Miss, " said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wanderinglike a troubled spirit, "a person below wishes to see you. "
"The carrier, no doubt, " I thought, and ran downstairs withoutinquiry. I was passing the back-parlour or teachers' sitting-room,the door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen,when some one ran out -
?" I suggested.and well enough in the face, but I think she'.
"It's her, I am sure! -- I could have told her anywhere!" criedthe individual who stopped my progress and took my hand.
I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant,matronly, yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair andeyes, and lively complexion.
"Well, who is it?" she asked, in a voice and with a smile I halfrecognised; "you've not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?"
In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously:"Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!" that was all I said; whereat she halflaughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlour. By thefire stood a little fellow of three years old, in plaid frock andtrousers.
"That is my little boy, " said Bessie directly.
"Then you are married, Bessie?"
"Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; andI've a little girl besides Bobby there, that I've christened Jane. "
"And you don't live at Gateshead?"
can work on muslin and canvas?"relinquished all interference in my affairs. " This.
"Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them,Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee,will you?" but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.
"You're not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout, "continued Mrs. Leaven. "I dare say they've not kept you too wellat school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than youare; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth. "
"Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?"
"Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and thereeverybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: buthis relations were against the match; and -- what do you think? --he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were foundout and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believeshe was envious; and now she and her sister lead a catand dog life together; they are always quarrelling -- "
"Well, and what of John Reed?"
"Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went tocollege, and he got -- plucked, I think they call it: and thenhis uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but heis such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him,I think. "
"What does he look like?"
"He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man;but he has such thick lips. "
"And Mrs. Reed?"
"Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she'snot quite easy in her mind: Mr. John's conduct does not pleaseher- -he spends a deal of money. "
"Did she send you here, Bessie?"
"No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heardthat there had been a letter from you, and that you were going toanother part of the country, I thought I'd just set off, and geta look at you before you were quite out of my reach. "
"I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie. " I said thislaughing: I perceived that Bessie's glance, though it expressedregard, did in no shape denote admiration.
"No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look likea lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were nobeauty as a child. "
I smiled at Bessie's frank answer: I felt that it was correct, butI confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteenmost people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not anexterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification.
"I dare say you are clever, though, " continued Bessie, by way ofsolace. "What can you do? Can you play on the piano?"
"A little. "
There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then askedme to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, andshe was charmed.
"The Miss Reeds could not play as well!" said she exultingly. "Ialways said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?"
"That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece. " It was alandscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to thesuperintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation withthe committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed.
I suggested.suggested.by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chillynight?
"Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture asany Miss Reed's drawing-master could paint, let alone the youngladies themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learntFrench?"
"Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it. "
"And you can work on muslin and canvas?"
"I can. "
"Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: youwill get on whether your relations notice you or not. There wassomething I wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything fromyour father's kinsfolk, the Eyres?"
"Never in my life. "
"Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quitedespicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as muchgentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, aMr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said youwere it school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, forhe could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country,and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two. He lookedquite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother. "
"What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?"
"An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine-- the butler did tell me -- "
"Madeira?" I suggested.
"Yes, that is it -- that is the very word. "
"So he went?"
"Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was veryhigh with him; she called him afterwards a 'sneaking tradesman. 'My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant. "
"Very likely, " I returned; "or perhaps clerk or agent to awine-merchant. "
Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and thenshe was obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutesthe next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. Weparted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: eachwent her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fellto meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, Imounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a newlife in the unknown environs of Millcote.