第278页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第278页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known
him. He was my mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago.
It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the
speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them:
they parted in anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged
afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a
fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no
near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more closely
related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would
atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter
informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation,
with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St.
John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning
rings. He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a
momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news.
Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds
each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the
good it would have enabled him to do.'
This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further
reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day
I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted
the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned.
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CHAPTER XXXI
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MY home, then,- when I at last find a home,- is a cottage; a little
room with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four
painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three
plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber
of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and
chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty
wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has
increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary.
It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the
little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the
hearth. This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty
scholars. But three of the number can read: none write or cipher.
Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest
accent of the district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in
understanding each other's language. Some of them are unmannered,
rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a
wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not
forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood
as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of