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第9章 黑暗大精灵

　　'Well, you know, Missis always said they were poor and quitedespicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as muchgentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr.Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you wereat school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for hecould not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and theship was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked quite agentleman, and I believe he was your father's brother.'

　　I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fiercespeaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling thanthat of sombre indignation. I took a book- some Arabian tales; I satdown and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; myown thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually foundfascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: theshrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun orbreeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirtof my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation whichwas quite sequestered; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees,the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russetleaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. Ileaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheepwere feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It wasa very grey day; a most opaque sky, 'onding on snaw,' canopied all;thence flakes fell at

　　'What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?' was myscarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemedas if my tongue pronounced words, without my will consenting totheir utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had nocontrol.

　　On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd:she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's,and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and toldthat to-morrow she should have half a dozen of untidily foldedarticles pinned to her shoulder.

　　I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means ofbeing kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt theirmanners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I sawsometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at thecottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enoughto purchase liberty at the price of caste.

　　'Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?'

　　I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; theafternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. Atdark I allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to rundownstairs; for, from the comparative silence below, and from thecessation of appeals to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr.Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window;but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight and snowflakes togetherthickened the air, and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down thecurtain and went back to the fireside.

　　THE next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing byrushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with theceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A changehad taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keennorth-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windowsall night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned thecontents of the ewers to ice.

　　Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time inperfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehurstsproduce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics,while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the twoyounger ones whispered, 'How shocking!'