Джейн Эйр / Jane Eyre
Шрифт:
Milicent glanced at me with a half-reproachful look, as if I could hinder it; but her countenance changed when she heard Hattersley’s voice, shouting through door and wall, – ‘I’m your man! Send for more wine: here isn’t half enough!’
We had scarcely entered the drawing-room before we were joined by Lord Lowborough.
‘What can induce you to come so soon?’ exclaimed his lady, with a most ungracious air of dissatisfaction.
‘You know I never drink, Annabella,’ replied he seriously.
‘Well, but you might stay with them a little: it looks so silly to be always dangling after the women; I wonder you can!’
He reproached her with a look of mingled bitterness and surprise, and, sinking into a chair, suppressed a heavy sigh, bit his pale lips, and fixed his eyes upon the floor.
‘You did right to leave them, Lord Lowborough,’ said I. ‘I trust you will always continue to honour us so early with your company. And if Annabella knew the value of true wisdom, and the misery of folly and – and intemperance, she would not talk such nonsense – even in jest.’
He raised his eyes while I spoke, and gravely turned them upon me, with a half-surprised, half-abstracted look, and then bent them on his wife.
‘At least,’ said she, ‘I know the value of a warm heart and a bold, manly spirit.’
‘Well, Annabella,’ said he, in a deep and hollow tone, ‘since my presence is disagreeable to you, I will relieve you of it.’
‘Are you going back to them, then?’ said she, carelessly.
‘No,’ exclaimed he, with harsh and startling emphasis. ‘I will not go back to them! And I will never stay with them one moment longer than I think right, for you or any other tempter! But you needn’t mind that; I shall never trouble you again by intruding my company upon you so unseasonably.’
He left the room: I heard the hall-door open and shut, and immediately after, on putting aside the curtain, I saw him pacing down the park, in the comfortless gloom of the damp, cloudy twilight.
‘It would serve you right, Annabella,’ said I, at length, ‘if Lord Lowborough were to return to his old habits, which had so nearly effected his ruin, and which it cost him such an effort to break: you would then see cause to repent such conduct as this.’
‘Not at all, my dear! I should not mind if his lordship were to see fit to intoxicate himself every day: I should only the sooner be rid of him.’
‘Oh, Annabella!’ cried Milicent. ‘How can you say such wicked things! It would, indeed, be a just punishment, as far as you are concerned, if Providence should take you at your word, and make you feel what others feel, that – She paused as a sudden burst of loud talking and laughter reached us from the dining-room, in which the voice of Hattersley was pre-eminently conspicuous, even to my unpractised ear.
‘What you feel at this moment, I suppose?’ said Lady Lowborough, with a malicious smile, fixing her eyes upon her cousin’s distressed countenance.
The latter offered no reply, but averted her face and brushed away a tear. At that moment the door opened and admitted Mr. Hargrave, just a little flushed, his dark eyes sparkling with unwonted vivacity.
‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re come, Walter?’ cried his sister. ‘But I wish you could have got Ralph to come too.’
‘Utterly impossible, dear Milicent,’ replied he, gaily. ‘I had much ado to get away myself. Ralph attempted to keep me by violence; Huntingdon threatened me with the eternal loss of his friendship; and Grimsby, worse than all, endeavoured to make me ashamed of my virtue, by such galling sarcasms and innuendoes as he knew would wound me the most. So you see, ladies, you ought to make me welcome when I have braved and suffered so much for the favour of your sweet society.’ He smilingly turned to me and bowed as he finished the sentence.
‘Isn’t he handsome now, Helen!’ whispered Milicent, her sisterly pride overcoming, for the moment, all other considerations.
‘He would be,’ I returned, ‘if that brilliance of eye, and lip, and cheek were natural to him; but look again, a few hours hence.’
Here the gentleman took a seat near me at the table, and petitioned for a cup of coffee.
‘I consider this an apt illustration of heaven taken by storm,’ said he, as I handed one to him. ‘I am in paradise, now; but I have fought my way through flood and fire to win it. Ralph Hattersley’s last resource was to set his back against the door, and swear I should find no passage but through his body (a pretty substantial one too). Happily, however, that was not the only door, and I effected my escape by the side entrance through the butler’s pantry, to the infinite amazement of Benson, who was cleaning the plate.’
Mr. Hargrave laughed, and so did his cousin; but his sister and I remained silent and grave.
‘Pardon my levity, Mrs. Huntingdon,’ murmured he, more seriously, as he raised his eyes to my face. ‘You are not used to these things: you suffer them to affect your delicate mind too sensibly. But I thought of you in the midst of those lawless roysterers; and I endeavoured to persuade Mr. Huntingdon to think of you too; but to no purpose: I fear he is fully determined to enjoy himself this night; and it will be no use keeping the coffee waiting for him or his companions; it will be much if they join us at tea. Meantime, I earnestly wish I could banish the thoughts of them from your mind – and my own too, for I hate to think of them – yes – even of my dear friend Huntingdon, when I consider the power he possesses over the happiness of one so immeasurably superior to himself, and the use he makes of it – I positively detest the man!’
‘You had better not say so to me, then,’ said I; ‘for, bad as he is, he is part of myself, and you cannot abuse him without offending me.’
‘Pardon me, then, for I would sooner die than offend you. But let us say no more of him for the present, if you please.’
At last they came; but not till after ten, when tea, which had been delayed for more than half an hour, was nearly over. Much as I had longed for their coming, my heart failed me at the riotous uproar of their approach; and Milicent turned pale, and almost started from her seat, as Mr. Hattersley burst into the room with a clamorous volley of oaths in his mouth, which Hargrave endeavoured to check by entreating him to remember the ladies.
‘Ah! you do well to remind me of the ladies, you dastardly deserter,’ cried he, shaking his formidable fist at his brother-in-law. ‘If it were not for them, you well know, I’d demolish you in the twinkling of an eye, and give your body to the fowls of heaven and the lilies of the fields! [212] ’ Then, planting a chair by Lady Lowborough’s side, he stationed himself in it, and began to talk to her with a mixture of absurdity and impudence that seemed rather to amuse than to offend her; though she affected to resent his insolence, and to keep him at bay with sallies of smart and spirited repartee.
212
the fowls of heaven and the lilies of the fields – from Gospel, Scripture: Matthew. Here Hattersley can’t keep from blasphemy