Mepo小窩

第七十五頁
On My Own
For two days, I traveled by coach as far as my money could take me. When the coach dropped me at a deserted crossroads, I forgot to take my parcel with me. So then I had nothing.
What was I to do? The day was hot. I struggled to a village and entered a bakery shop. Bur I had no money to buy bread.
“Do you know of any place where a servant or dressmaker is needed?” I asked wearily. The clerk shook her head.
Exhausted and starving, I wandered for hours. A little before dark, I begged a piece of bread from a local farmer. To my surprise, he gave me a thick slice.
I spent the night in nearby woods, on the cold, damp ground. It rained the next day. I had no shelter. Soaked to the skin, I looked for work and food again.
At one cottage door, a little girl was tossing cold porridge into a pig trough.
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“Will you give me that?” I asked her.
She stared at me. “Mother!” she called.”A woman wants this porridge.”
“Well, lass, give it to the beggar,” replied a womsn from indoors. ”The pig doesn’t want it.”
The girl emptied the sriff mass into my hands, and I ate it hungrily.
Twilight came, and I wandered far away from the village. Among the rainy marshes, I spied a light in the distance. I walked toward it over a hill, across a wide bog, and up a road.
Finally I reached a house. The friendly light shone from a low window. Bending down, I peered inside. An elderly woman sat knitting in the kitchen while two younger ones read.
I listened to their quiet talk. The two young women were sisters, Diana and Mary Rivers. They were waiting for the return of their brother, St. John. The older woman was a servant named Hannah.
Perhaps they could help me. I timiedly knocked at the door, and Hannah oopened it.
“May I speak to the young ladies?” I

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asked. “I need shelter for the night and a morsel of bread to eat.”
Hannah looked at me suspiciously. ”I’ll give you a piece of bread ,” she said. ”But we can’t take in a vagrant. Here is a penny; now please go.”
Worn out, I sank down on the step and wept as the door shut. Just then, a person appeared near me, knocking at the door.
“St. John, how wet and cold you must be!” exclaimed Hannah. “Come in—there has been a beggar here. Why, here she is still!”
“I overheard your conversation with her,” St. John said. “I will speak with the woman.” He asked me to come in.
His sister Diana kindly gave me bread and milk, which I ate feebly. I told her my name was Jane Elliott. I did not want anyone to know who I really was.
“And where do you live? Where are your friends?” Mary asked.
“What has happened to you?” St. John added.
“Sir, I can give you no details tonight,” I said weakly. “But I will trust you. If I were a stray dog, I know you would not turn me away.”
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I was right to trust them. Soon I was taken upstairs to a warm, dry bed, and gratefully fell asleep.

For there days and nights I lay in bed, barely moving and not speaking at all. I heard Diana and Mary whispering. “It is good we took her in” and “She has gone through strange hardships.”
On the fourth day, I was able to speak and move. Hannah brought me gruel and dry toast to eat.
My clothes, cleaned and dried, were on a chair by the bed. I slowly dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen.
From talking to Hannah, I learned that St. John Rivers was a parson who lived a few miles away. His sisters were both governesses.
The family took me into me. But St. John did not speak until tea was served. He was in his late twenties, tall and slender with large blue eyes.
“If you’ll tell us where your friends live, we can write to them and return you home,”he said kindly.
“I have no home or friends,” I said.
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“You have never been married?” St. John asked.
“No,” I said. My face burned. I added, “I can tell you that I am an orphan. I spent six years as a student at Lowood School, and two more as a teacher. I became a governess nearly a year ago. I had to leave four days before you found me here. It would be useless and dangerous to explain why I left. But I am free taking me in.”
“I did, but it is not my real name. Yet I wish to be called that for now,” I said. “Help me seek work. Then I will leave.”
St. John promised he would try.
The more time I stayed with them, the more I liked Mary and Diana. I read books and sketched. Days passed like hours, and weeks passed like days.
When a month had gone by, Diana and Mary prepared to return to their jobs. St. John told me that he had found work for me. Would I be the teacher at a new school for girls? The school even had a little cottage for me to live in! I was happy to accept the offer.
第八十頁
The day before I was to move to town, a letter came for St. John.
“Our uncle John is dead,” he said to his sisters. He showed them the letter. They all smiled sadly.
“We never knew our mother’s brother,” Diana explained to me. “He died with a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He did not have a wife or children—we and one other person were his only relatives.”
“We hoped we would inherit some of the money. But this letter says that he has left it to the other relation.”
St. John locked the letter in his desk. He and his sisters did not speak again about it. And in a few days, each of us went our separate ways.