Шарлотта Бронте – Jane Eyre. An Autobiography / Джейн Эйр. Автобиография (страница 3)
“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 awful to grown people; so 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 could be kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated: no, I was not heroic enough to buy liberty at such a price.
“Would you like to go to school?”
Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine; and if Bessie’s memories of school-discipline were somewhat awful, the young ladies’ accomplishments were, I thought, attractive. Bessie showed me beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers painted by them; told me of songs they could sing, of French books they could translate. Besides, school would be a complete change: it meant a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.
“I should indeed like to go to school,” was my conclusion.
“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 not in a good state.”
Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard.
“Is that your mistress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd.
“I should like to speak to her before I go.”
In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, the apothecary recommended my being sent to school; and it was no doubt readily adopted.
On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her family, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, my father caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where he worked, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.
Chapter IV
Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John once attempted an attack on me, but I instantly turned against him and planted a hard blow on his nose. He immediately ran to his mama. I heard him begin the story of how “that nasty Jane Eyre” had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly —
“Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; neither you nor your sisters should associate with her.”
Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly – “They are not fit to associate with me.”
Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this declaration, she ran up the stair, dragged me into the nursery, pushed me down on the bed and told me to stay in that place or never say a word during the remainder of the day.
“What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?” It seemed as if something spoke out of me over which I had no control.
“What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it[12].
“My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead.”
Mrs. Reed soon came to herself: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears[13], and then left me without a word.
November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given.
From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had been kind, I should have spent the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the eye of Mrs. Reed. In my room, I undressed hastily, and got into bed.
The hours seemed long while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up to bring me something by way of supper – a bun or a cheese-cake – then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, “Good night, Miss Jane.” When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.
It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o’clock in the morning: Bessie went down to breakfast; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond.
Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass. I was making my bed.
From the window I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage roll through. Carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. I was finishing my breakfast of bread and milk when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.
“Miss Jane, take off your pinafore. Have you washed your hands and face this morning?”
Bessie took me to the washstand, scrubbed my face and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; brushed my head, took off my pinafore, and then hurried me to the top of the stairs, told me to go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.
“Who could want me?” I asked myself, as I turned the door-handle. “What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the room? – a man or a woman?” The handle turned, the door opened, I looked up at – a black pillar! – such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow shape whose face was like a carved mask.
Mrs. Reed took her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stranger with the words: “This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you.”
“Ten years.”
“So much?” was the doubtful answer. Presently he addressed me – “Your name, little girl?”
“Jane Eyre, sir.”
“Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?”
Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me, “Perhaps the less said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.”
“Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk. Come here,” he said.
He placed me straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!
“A naughty child makes a sad sight,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?”
“They go to hell,” was my ready answer.
“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?”
“A pit full of fire.”
“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?”
“No, sir.”
“What must you do to avoid it?”
I hesitated for a moment: “I must keep in good health, and not die.”
“How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two ago, – a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven.”
“I hope that you repent of your bad behaviour to your excellent benefactress. Do you say your prayers night and morning?” continued my interrogator.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you read your Bible?”
“Sometimes.”
“And the Psalms? I hope you like them?”
“No, sir.”
“No? oh, shocking!”
“Psalms are not interesting,” I remarked.