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

they had not asked her advice; and there was much to be said on the
other side of the question. Helen's eyesight would never be good for
much again, and as William Preston's wife she would never need to do
anything, if she chose to sit with her hands before her; and a boy
was a great charge to a widowed mother; and now there would be a
decent steady man to see after him. So, by-and-by, aunt Fanny seemed
to take a brighter view of the marriage than did my mother herself,
who hardly ever looked up, and never smiled after the day when she
promised William Preston to be his wife. But much as she had loved
Gregory before, she seemed to love him more now. She was continually
talking to him when they were alone, though he was far too young to
understand her moaning words, or give her any comfort, except by his
caresses.

At last William Preston and she were wed; and she went to be mistress
of a well-stocked house, not above half-an-hour's walk from where
aunt Fanny lived. I believe she did all that she could to please my
father; and a more dutiful wife, I have heard him himself say, could
never have been. But she did not love him, and he soon found it out.
She loved Gregory, and she did not love him. Perhaps, love would
have come in time, if he had been patient enough to wait; but it just
turned him sour to see how her eye brightened and her colour came at
the sight of that little child, while for him who had given her so
much, she had only gentle words as cold as ice. He got to taunt her
with the difference in her manner, as if that would bring love: and
he took a positive dislike to Gregory,--he was so jealous of the
ready love that always gushed out like a spring of fresh water when
he came near. He wanted her to love him more, and perhaps that was
all well and good; but he wanted her to love her child less, and that
was an evil wish. One day, he gave way to his temper, and cursed and
swore at Gregory, who had got into some mischief, as children will;
my mother made some excuse for him; my father said it was hard enough
to have to keep another man's child, without having it perpetually
held up in its naughtiness by his wife, who ought to be always in the
same mind that he was; and so from little they got to more; and the
end of it was, that my mother took to her bed before her time, and I
was born that very day. My father was glad, and proud, and sorry,
all in a breath; glad and proud that a son was born to him; and sorry
for his poor wife's state, and to think how his angry words had
brought it on. But he was a man who liked better to be angry than
sorry, so he soon found out that it was all Gregory's fault, and owed
him an additional grudge for having hastened my birth. He had
another grudge against him before long. My mother began to sink the
day after I was born. My father sent to Carlisle for doctors, and
would have coined his heart's blood into gold to save her, if that
could have been; but it could not. My aunt Fanny used to say
sometimes, that she thought that Helen did not wish to live, and so
just let herself die away without trying to take hold on life; but
when I questioned her, she owned that my mother did all the doctors
bade her do, with the same sort of uncomplaining patience with which