CHAPTER III 30
" Well , well ! who knows what may happen ?" said Mr . Lloyd , as he got up . " The child ought to have change of air and scene ," he added , speaking to himself ; " nerves not in a good state ."
Bessie now returned ; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel-walk .
" Is that your mistress , nurse ?" asked Mr . Lloyd . " I should like to speak to her before I go ."
Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room , and led the way out . In the interview which followed between him and Mrs . Reed , I presume , from after-occurrences , that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school ; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted ; for as Abbot said , in discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night , after I was in bed , and , as they thought , asleep , " Missis was , she dared say , glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome , ill- conditioned child , who always looked as if she were watching everybody , and scheming plots underhand ." Abbot , I think , gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes .
On that same occasion I learned , for the first time , from Miss Abbot ' s communications to Bessie , that my father had been a poor clergyman ; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends , who considered the match beneath her ; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience , he cut her off without a shilling ; that after my mother and father had been married a year , the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated , and where that disease was then prevalent : that my mother took the infection from him , and both died within a month of each other .
Bessie , when she heard this narrative , sighed and said , " Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied , too , Abbot ."