Читать книгу Сборник лучших произведений английской классической литературы. Уровень 3 - Эмили Бронте, Эмили Бронте - Страница 13

When I woke up, I thought that a brighter era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. I dressed myself with care. I wished, as I often had before, that I wasn't so small and plain. I wished I were taller and prettier. Meanwhile, I was pale, little and had irregular features.

I left my room tidy and went downstairs. There was no one around, I walked through the hall, taking in the paintings, the bronze lamps and the clock. The front door stood half-open, so I stepped outside and across the dewy lawn into the sunshine, and looked up at the house. Now I looked respectable enough to appear in front of Mrs. Fairfax and my new pupil.

I descended the slippery steps, then I reached the hall. I looked at some pictures on the walls and at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved. Everything seemed so luxurious to me though I was so little accustomed to luxury. I looked out of the open window. A row of old thorn trees divided the grounds from the meadows all around-they must have given the house its name[21]. In the distance there were moors, and on a nearby hilltop I could see a little village with a church.

I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, when that lady appeared at the door.

“What! out already?” she said. “I see you're an early riser! So, how do you like Thornfield?”

“I like it very much.”

“It is a pretty place,” she said. “But I fear it will get out of order, unless Mr. Rochester resides here permanently.”

“Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?”

“The owner of Thornfield,” she said. “Did you not know he was called Rochester?”

“No. I thought Thornfield belonged to you.”

“To me? Bless you, child!” she laughed. “No, I'm just the housekeeper, the manager! I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was. But this connection is nothing to me. I consider myself an ordinary housekeeper and him my employer.”

I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real.

“And the little girl-my pupil?”

“She is Mr. Rochester's ward. He asked me to find a teacher for her. He wants her to be brought up here, in-shire.”

As I was thinking about this discovery, a little girl, followed by her nurse, came running up the lawn. My pupil was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, with a pale, small-featured face, and curls to her waist.

“Good morning, Miss Adèle,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.”

“Bonjour,” said Adèle, and turned to her nurse, talking excitedly in French. She came and shook hand with me when she heard, that I was her governess.

“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.

“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adèle was born in France. I believe, she had never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here, she could speak no English. She can shift between the languages now but I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French. But it will be no problem to you, won't it?”

Fortunately I had been taught French by a French lady, and I had talked with Madame Pierrot as often as I could. Now I could easily communicate with my pupil. When Adèle heard I could speak French, she replied briefly but then started to speak fluently and complimented my skills. “You speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English,” she said.

I led her in to breakfast.

“Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked-how it did smoke! – and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester,” the girl continued. Then she suddenly asked, “And what is your name, Mademoiselle?”

“Eyre-Jane Eyre.”

She repeated it with a French accent and got upset that she could not pronounce it correctly.

After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, the room Mr. Rochester had ordered to be used as the schoolroom. There was a bookcase containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, a piano, a pair of globes and an easel for painting.

Adèle was docile and eager to study but she was not accustomed to any kind of discipline. I felt it would be cruel to keep her all day the first time, and I allowed her to return to her nurse at noon.

I decided to draw some little sketches for her use and was on my way upstairs to fetch my pencils when Mrs. Fairfax called me, “Your school hours are over now, I suppose,” she said. “Would you like to see the house?”

I followed her into every room, gazing in wonder at the beautiful furniture, the rich deep carpets, and the grand empty bedrooms with their velvet drapes. Mrs. Fairfax dusted here and there as she showed me around.

“In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” I said. “Except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily.”

“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected. So, I thought it would be best to keep the rooms in readiness.”

“What is Mr. Rochester like? Do you like him? Is he generally liked?” I asked

“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. And I have no cause to do otherwise than like him. He has always been just and noble. But he is rather peculiar, I suppose.”

“In what way is he peculiar?” I asked.

“I don't know-it is not easy to describe-nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly understand him, in short-at least, I don't: but he is a very good master.”

We were already upstairs; now I followed her through a doorway and up a narrow staircase to the attic. We went along a gloomy passageway, then up a ladder and through a trapdoor onto the roof.

We were as high up as the rooks in the trees behind the house, and I could look right into their nests. Walking around the battlements, I saw the grounds laid out like a map, with the meadows, the village and the hills beyond all lying peacefully in the warm autumn sun.

By now it was almost time for lunch. While Mrs. Fairfax stayed to fasten the trapdoor, I climbed down the ladder. My eyes had grown used to the bright sunshine, and now the attic passageway seemed pitch-black. I had to feel my way along the walls in the silence.

As I was nearing the top of the attic stairs, I heard a very strange sound. It was a kind of laugh, but not a happy one. It sounded loud, hollow and inhuman-almost like a bark. If I had been alone, and if it hadn't been the middle of the day, I would have feared it was a ghost. I hurried down the staircase and through the door into the upstairs hallway.

“Mrs. Fairfax,” I called. She emerged a few moments later.

“Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?” I asked.

“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace Poole. I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms.”

The laugh was repeated in a low tone and ended with a murmur.

“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.

I really did not expect any Grace to answer; but the door nearest me opened, and a servant came out, – a woman of between thirty and forty; a red-haired figure with a hard, plain face. If she were an apparition, there were no apparition less ghostly.

“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax.

As we went on, my companion asked me about Adèle, and the conversation about the girl continued till we reached the light and cheerful region downstairs.

Adèle met us there, and we found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.