第145页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第145页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their
two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting
gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on
which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs.
Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes
bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel
Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice
business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and
sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened
languidly to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with
one consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the
principal actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and- because closely
connected with him- Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party.
If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed
to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was
sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation.
The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly
felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and
was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk
the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched
on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the
gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with
the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The
dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards.
Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity,
some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into
conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and
airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the
library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and
prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of
absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the
merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.
It was verging on dusk, and the dock had already given warning of
the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in
the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed-
'Voila Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!'
I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the
others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same
time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became
audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.
'What can possess him to come home in that style?' said Miss
Ingram. 'He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went
out? and Pilot was with him:- what has he done with the animals?'
As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments
so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the