A party was a party, a lioness was a
lioness; and--shall I confess it?--at that time an extra dish of
biscuits was enough to mark the evening. We felt all the importance
of the occasion: tea spread in the dining-room, ladies in the
drawing-room. We roamed about inconveniently, no doubt, and
excitedly, and in one of my incursions crossing the hall, after Miss
Bronte had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front
door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out
into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him. When I went
back to the drawing-room again, the ladies asked me where he was. I
vaguely answered that I thought he was coming back. I was puzzled at
the time, nor was it all made clear to me till long years afterwards,
when one day Mrs. Procter asked me if I knew what had happened once
when my father had invited a party to meet Jane Eyre at his house.
It was one of the dullest evenings she had ever spent in her life,
she said. And then with a good deal of humour she described the
situation--the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful
conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how, finally,
overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room,
left the house, and gone off to his club.
Pages:
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647