Page:Life and Works of the Sisters Bronte - Volume I.djvu/20

 The country - house party is equally far from anything known, either to realistic or romantic truth, even to the truth as it existed in the days of 'Jane Eyre's' Quarterly Re- viewer and the Cowan Bridge School. Listen to the badinage of the beautiful and accomplished Miss Ingram. She is mak- ing brutal fun of governesses, in order to be overheard by the shy and shrinking Jane behind the window-curtain. Miss Ingram, it should be remarked, has never seen Jane before, has no grievance against her, and can only be supposed to be displaying the aristocratic temper as such. It pleases her to describe a love affair that her childhood had discovered between her own governess and her brother's tutor. She tells how she and her precious brothers and sisters employed it the love affair 'as a sort of lever to hoist our dead- weights from the house.'

'. . . Dear mamma, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not, my lady-mother?'

'Certainly, my best. And I was quite right, depend on that ; there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well- regulated house ; firstly ---'

'Oh, gracious, mamma! spare us the enumeration ! An reste, we all know them : danger of bad example to the innocence of childhood distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting insolence accompanying mutiny and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park ?'

Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park !

But Miss Ingram can also show herself as the gay and sprightly trifler with Rochester's well-bred homage.

'Whenever I marry,' she continued, after a pause which none interrupted, ' I am resolved that my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you.'

'I am all obedience,' was the response.

'Here, then, is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs ; and for that reason sing it " con spirito."'

'Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water.'