"ElizabethGaskell-TheHalfBrothers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gaskell Elizabeth C)

thought of her husband and child just because she never spoke about
them. Aunt Fanny was older than my mother, and had a way of treating
her like a child; but, for all that, she was a kind, warm-hearted
creature, who thought more of her sister's welfare than she did of
her own and it was on her bit of money that they principally lived,
and on what the two could earn by working for the great Glasgow
sewing-merchants. But by-and-by my mother's eye-sight began to fail.
It was not that she was exactly blind, for she could see well enough
to guide herself about the house, and to do a good deal of domestic
work; but she could no longer do fine sewing and earn money. It must
have been with the heavy crying she had had in her day, for she was
but a young creature at this time, and as pretty a young woman, I
have heard people say, as any on the country side. She took it sadly
to heart that she could no longer gain anything towards the keep of
herself and her child. My aunt Fanny would fain have persuaded her
that she had enough to do in managing their cottage and minding
Gregory; but my mother knew that they were pinched, and that aunt
Fanny herself had not as much to eat, even of the commonest kind of
food, as she could have done with; and as for Gregory, he was not a
strong lad, and needed, not more food--for he always had enough,
whoever went short--but better nourishment, and more flesh-meat. One
day--it was aunt Fanny who told me all this about my poor mother,
long after her death--as the sisters were sitting together, aunt
Fanny working, and my mother hushing Gregory to sleep, William
Preston, who was afterwards my father, came in. He was reckoned an
old bachelor; I suppose he was long past forty, and he was one of the
wealthiest farmers thereabouts, and had known my grandfather well,
and my mother and my aunt in their more prosperous days. He sat
down, and began to twirl his hat by way of being agreeable; my aunt
Fanny talked, and he listened and looked at my mother. But he said
very little, either on that visit, or on many another that he paid
before he spoke out what had been the real purpose of his calling so
often all along, and from the very first time he came to their house.
One Sunday, however, my aunt Fanny stayed away from church, and took
care of the child, and my mother went alone. When she came back, she
ran straight upstairs, without going into the kitchen to look at
Gregory or speak any word to her sister, and aunt Fanny heard her cry
as if her heart was breaking; so she went up and scolded her right
well through the bolted door, till at last she got her to open it.
And then she threw herself on my aunt's neck, and told her that
William Preston had asked her to marry him, and had promised to take
good charge of her boy, and to let him want for nothing, neither in
the way of keep nor of education, and that she had consented. Aunt
Fanny was a good deal shocked at this; for, as I have said, she had
often thought that my mother had forgotten her first husband very
quickly, and now here was proof positive of it, if she could so soon
think of marrying again. Besides as aunt Fanny used to say, she
herself would have been a far more suitable match for a man of
William Preston's age than Helen, who, though she was a widow, had
not seen her four-and-twentieth summer. However, as aunt Fanny said,