Jane Eyre Charlotte BrontĂ« (buy e reader TXT) đ
- Author: Charlotte Brontë
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âMy darling Blanche! recollectâ ââ
âI doâ âI recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my willâ âquick, Sam!â
âYesâ âyesâ âyes!â cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. âLet her comeâ âit will be excellent sport!â
The footman still lingered. âShe looks such a rough one,â said he.
âGo!â ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.
Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned.
âShe wonât come now,â said he. âShe says itâs not her mission to appear before the âvulgar herdâ (themâs her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one.â
âYou see now, my queenly Blanche,â began Lady Ingram, âshe encroaches. Be advised, my angel girlâ âandâ ââ
âShow her into the library, of course,â cut in the âangel girl.â âIt is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?â
âYes, maâamâ âbut she looks such a tinkler.â
âCease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.â
Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more.
âSheâs ready now,â said the footman, as he reappeared. âShe wishes to know who will be her first visitor.â
âI think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,â said Colonel Dent.
âTell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.â
Sam went and returned.
âShe says, sir, that sheâll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor,â he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, âany ladies either, except the young, and single.â
âBy Jove, she has taste!â exclaimed Henry Lynn.
Miss Ingram rose solemnly: âI go first,â she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men.
âOh, my best! oh, my dearest! pauseâ âreflect!â was her mamaâs cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.
A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it le cas to wring her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened.
The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.
Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence.
âWell, Blanche?â said Lord Ingram.
âWhat did she say, sister?â asked Mary.
âWhat did you think? How do you feel?â âIs she a real fortune-teller?â demanded the Misses Eshton.
âNow, now, good people,â returned Miss Ingram, âdonât press upon me. Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you allâ âmy good mama includedâ âascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks tomorrow morning, as he threatened.â
Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her.
Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Samâs calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.
Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingramâs had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.
âI am sure she is something not right!â they cried, one and all. âShe told us such things! She knows all about us!â and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.
Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for.
Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones.
In the midst of the
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