第17页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第17页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
harshly-
'Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her;
she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your
sisters should associate with her.'
Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and
without at all deliberating on my words-
'They are not fit to associate with me.'
Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange
and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me
like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of
my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or
utter one syllable during the remainder of the day.
'What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?' was my
scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed
as if my tongue pronounced words, without my will consenting to
their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no
control.
'What?' said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold
composed grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; 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.
'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 rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly,
she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie
supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she
proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child
ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed
only bad feelings surging in my breast.
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: my
share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of
Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room,
dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair
elaborately ringleted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of
the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the
butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments
were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room
door opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would
retire from the stair-head to the solitary and silent nursery:
there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. 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 but been kind and companionable, I
should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with
her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in