"Has she mentioned me lately?"

"She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would

come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up

at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the

afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself

here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?"

Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the

cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my

taking off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale

and tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to

be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let

her undress me when a child.

Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about--

setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and

butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little

Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give

me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as

her light foot and good looks.

Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to

sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at

the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round

stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to

accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery

chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days.

She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort

of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a

master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told

her he rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he

treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to

her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and

to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely

of the kind she relished.

In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me

my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the

hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years

ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty,

raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate

and embittered heart--a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation-

-to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away

and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my

prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still

felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced

firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread

of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite

healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.




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