第74页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第74页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall,
stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I
was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked.
And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be
difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet
I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had
brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock- which,
Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety-
and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do
respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new
pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having
opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and
neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth.
Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery
steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I
looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a
grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl
necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock
whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and
rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then
I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was
half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine
autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and
still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed
the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions
not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a
nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.
Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery,
whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and
grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated
by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong,
knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the
mansion's designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those
round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from
the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming
to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find
existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet,
whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of
these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its
old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates.
I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet
listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the
wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it
was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that