第44页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第44页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
at last.
One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was
sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division,
my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure
just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline;
and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose
en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain
whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the
schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen,
stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously
from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this
piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst,
buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid
than ever.
I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too
well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my
disposition, etc.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to
apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I
had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise,- I had been
looking out daily for the 'Coming Man,' whose information respecting
my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever:
now there he was.
He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I
did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I
watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see
its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I
listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the
room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from
immediate apprehension.
'I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do;
it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico
chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith
that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she
shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any
account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they
have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma'am!
I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to!- when I was here
last, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying
on the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of
repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not
been well mended from time to time.'
He paused.
'Your directions shall be attended to, sir,' said Miss Temple.
'And, ma'am,' he continued, 'the laundress tells me some of the
girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules
limit them to one.'
'I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and
Catherine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at
Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers