Jane Eyre. An Autobiography / Джейн Эйр. Автобиография. Шарлотта Бронте

not! I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.”

      The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily. Finally, he said —

      “What made you ill yesterday?”

      “She had a fall,” said Bessie, again putting in her word.

      “Fall! why, that is like a baby! Can’t she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.”

      “I was knocked down,” was the blunt explanation, “but that did not make me ill,” I added.

      A loud bell rang for the servants’ dinner; he knew what it was. “That’s for you, nurse,” said he; “you can go down; I’ll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back.”

      Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was strictly observed at Gateshead Hall.

      “The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?” continued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone.

      “I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.”

      I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.

      “Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?”

      “Of Mr. Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle, – so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.”

      “Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?”

      “No: but night will come again before long: and besides, – I am unhappy, – very unhappy, for other things.”

      “What other things? Can you tell me some of them?”

      How much I wished to reply fully to this question but how difficult it was!

      “For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.”

      “You have a kind aunt and cousins.”

      Again I paused; then said —

      “But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room.”

      “Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?” asked he. “Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?”

      “It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant.”

      “Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?”

      “If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.”

      “Perhaps you may – who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?”

      “I think not, sir.”

      “None belonging to your father?”

      “I don’t know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about them.”

      “If you had such, would you like to go to them?”

      I reflected. Poverty looks awful to grown people; so poverty for me was synonymous with degradation.

      “No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply.

      “Not even if they were kind to you?”

      I shook my head: I could not see how poor people could be kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated: no, I was not heroic enough to buy liberty at such a price.

      “Would you like to go to school?”

      Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine; and if Bessie’s memories of school-discipline were somewhat awful, the young ladies’ accomplishments were, I thought, attractive. Bessie showed me beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers painted by them; told me of songs they could sing, of French books they could translate. Besides, school would be a complete change: it meant a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.

      “I should indeed like to go to school,” was my conclusion.

      “Well, well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. “The child ought to have change of air and scene,” he added, speaking to himself; “nerves not in a good state.”

      Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard.

      “Is that your mistress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd.

      “I should like to speak to her before I go.”

      In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, the apothecary recommended my being sent to school; and it was no doubt readily adopted.

      On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her family, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, my father caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where he worked, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other.

      Chapter IV

      Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John once attempted an attack on me, but I instantly turned against him and planted a hard blow on his nose. He immediately ran to his mama. I heard him begin the story of how “that nasty Jane Eyre” had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly —

      “Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; neither you nor your sisters should associate with her.”

      Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly – “They are not fit to associate with me.”

      Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this declaration, she ran up the stair, dragged me into the nursery, pushed me down on the bed and told me to stay in that place or never say a word during the remainder of the day.

      “What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?” It seemed as if something spoke out of me over which I had no control.

      “What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it[12].

      “My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead.”

      Mrs. Reed soon came to herself: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears[13], and then left me without a word.

      November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given.

      From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had been kind, I should have spent the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the eye of Mrs. Reed. In my room, I undressed hastily, and got into bed.

      The hours seemed long while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up to bring me something by way of supper – a bun or a cheese-cake – then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, “Good night, Miss

12

Я знала, что мне это даром не пройдёт.

13

надавала мне оплеух