第125页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第125页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
beheld, either before or since. Adele ran quite wild in the midst of
it: the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival,
seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over
all her 'toilettes,' as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were
'passees,' and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did
nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the
bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows
before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school
duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her
service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering)
her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and
French pastry, to truss game and garnish dessert-dishes.
The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time
for dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to
nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody-
Adele excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to
my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the
region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I
chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had
always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form
of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I
watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list
slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,-
just say a word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to
polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or take stains from
papered walls, and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen
once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and
go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private
solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one hour in the
twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the
rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the
second storey: there she sat and sewed- and probably laughed
drearily to herself,- as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.
The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house,
except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one
discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or
isolation. I once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah
and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah
had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman
remarked-
'She gets good wages, I guess?'
'Yes,' said Leah; 'I wish I had as good; not that mine are to
complain of,- there's no stinginess at Thornfield; but they're not one
fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes
every quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has