Thornfield Hall (18 page)

Everything in Paris was right that evening—except for the lost girl who walked in circles, unable to confront the past or the future, refusing to return home but wishing for nothing more in the world. For everyone out walking in the
heure bleue
that had settled over Paris, there was the knowledge of home to return to, when night finally fell. But for me, for the person known all her brief life as “little Adèle Varens,” there was nowhere to go.

For it was inconceivable that the house my father had destroyed so long ago could still be there to greet and warm me as it once had done. Jealous rage had smashed first the pretty conservatory, my mother's favorite place to rest between her long, exacting roles at the theater; and had then, adding the cold calculation I had witnessed among the rich, surely sold or disposed of all the furniture and baubles once bought for her with love and joy. There could be no home for me there, whatever the witch Cibot chose to say.

Could she and Jenny be pointing me in the direction of the vicomte? Did they believe, for all the protestations made by Monsieur Rochester, and the flourishes engraved on the back of my tiny likeness, that I was truly Lucien's twin—that my sole reason for having been brought to Thornfield Hall had been an English
aristocrat's whim, possibly caused by a desire to impress a grand lady such as Mademoiselle Blanche Ingram? Had all my desperate longing to be loved and properly recognized by my father been in vain?

It was terrible to think of, but I set my route from the Left Bank down the rue Jacob, and as the gloom gathered in the ancient streets of that
quartier,
I allowed my steps to slow until at last I looked over a wall, almost as tall as I, that ran around a long garden there. At the far end it was possible to see the outline of a temple; the wall was a little lower by the side of the pillared summerhouse that must have been the place of rendezvous of my adored Maman and her lover; and I stopped altogether to stare in at the curved bench that ran around the walls, and the stone table, where Maman had perhaps propped a book in order to read poems aloud, as she so loved to do.

The evening was quiet, broken only by the sound of pigeons cooing, and the peace reminded me of the countryside, when we used to go, the vicomte and Maman and I, out to the forest of Fontainebleau or Chantilly. So it made my heart leap when a figure, hardly visible in the near-darkness, rose from the bench in the farthest corner of the Temple de l'Amour and strolled, sighing, down toward the lighted windows of the house. That it was the vicomte I had no doubt: he looked older, and his right arm, in an elegant white silk sling, was held close to his body. But I knew—just as I saw the gait of his son, Lucien, in the way he walked and the line of jaw and nose as he turned to look back at the temple, as if sensing the presence of someone there, all these gestures so instantly recognizable in his son—that the vicomte bore as little relation to me as the next person walking down the street. If I am anyone, I am the daughter of Céline Varens and Edward Fairfax Rochester. This faded eighteenth-century scene—temple, old house, and all—is nothing to do with me. It is not my home.

So I go with a new purpose up to Montparnasse, the one district I have avoided in all my distraught wanderings since leaving Jenny and old Cibot. I cross the great avenue, where as a child I stood goggling at the fine ladies as they passed in their coaches. With head bent and rapid steps, like a pilgrim nearing his goal, the sacred place where offerings must be made and sins expiated, I approach the entrance to the long street that is rue Vaugirard.

And as I go up the length of pavement, as unending now as it had seemed to a five-year-old, I see our house up on the right, the high wall that protects the courtyard from prying eyes now with an even thicker growth of ivy than it had borne before but otherwise unchanged, down to the green door, slightly battered, that is set into the wall.

My heart beats fast, and with a hand that knows its way, I search for the key on the ledge, hidden from sight by the overhanging ivy. It is there—of course it is!—and with a scraping, unwilling sound (for the key is rusty now), it turns in the lock, and the door swings open.

The courtyard makes me think at first that I have entered the wrong house after all. Instead of pot plants, the geraniums that were Jenny's proud possessions and the tall roses Maman would grow against the farther wall, there stands a tall statue in white marble, on a plinth that raises it well above human height. Clematis and honeysuckle, grown in a trellis cage around the yard, make a bower of this shrine to a goddess, and the air is heavy with their scent.

The goddess, who shines white in this last blueness of the evening, is Céline—Maman come alive and glowing—and at her feet, kneeling, head in hands, is Papa as I had known him when once we were all happy together, Papa, Maman, and I. There is no arrogance or vanity in his gaze, and he looks out at me as I enter his shrine with love and understanding. Then he rises, and comes to take me in his arms.

I cannot write here of the happiness I feel, nor of the delight the future holds for me now that we leave for England together, Papa and I.

I know only that Papa's dedication to the memory of Céline, of the house and the garden with its beautiful statue, coupled with his certain knowledge of Jane's faithful love for him, have led me at last to realize the true nature of love. Jane—the owner of the cool, quiet voice that has finally brought me here to find my past and my future—will be my companion and guide in life. That Papa loved Céline once is without doubt, and his remorse for his treatment of her will stay with him always. That I worshipped her also will remain with me to the end of my days. But, with the aid of the shy, humble girl who was in the beginning no more than governess at Thornfield Hall, we shall move forward into the next stage of our lives.

Mrs. Fairfax

S
oon all will be ready for Yorkshire's wed
ding of the decade, if not the century. Lilies and carnations grown in the greenhouses will be brought in, to stand in the Hall and the bridal chamber; the chapel will be adorned with red and white roses, to symbolize the two great estates at last brought together in holy matrimony. Salmon and venison are ordered, all the way from the Highlands of Scotland, while champagne and fine wines come from London.

The last weeks have been devoted to spring cleaning here at Thornfield Hall. “You must come back to us, Cousin Fairfax,” said the letter from Mr. Rochester that Lord Doune handed to me on a frosty morning not so long ago (the cold there did little good to my rheumatism, and was prone to last right up to the month of May). “My wife will be happy to see you installed as housekeeper at the Hall, in the
same capacity as before. Two maids, Leah and Grace Poole, are no longer with us, and you will be required to assist in engaging new staff from Sheffield or from the village of Whitcross. Please inform Mrs. Rochester of the date of your arrival: I leave for France imminently and look forward to greeting you on my return.”

All the way south from the misty island of the Hebrides, I considered my plan of action on arriving at the house I had tended so long and from which I had been asked to depart in haste after the failed “wedding” of Mr. Rochester and the governess. I had been awarded a covenant, it was true: it is in my cousin Edward's nature to ensure that no relative of his shall go hungry, and I could have lived happily in retirement after leaving the service of Lord and Lady Doune. But it would have been just as much out of my own nature to refuse Mr. Rochester's kind offer of employment here at Thornfield as it would have been unlike him to allow me to live unprovided for. I accepted with alacrity and came south a month ago, to hire staff as he instructed and to clean a house left sadly in need of soap and polish, scouring rag and broom.

Mrs. Rochester met me on the front doorstep of the Hall, just as I had come out to meet her all of seven years ago, when she had first come here to give instruction to the little French girl Mr. Rochester had placed in my care. “Welcome to Thornfield, dear Mrs. Fairfax” were the opening words of the young lady who has, since her marriage following the sad death of Mr. Rochester's first wife, become the chatelaine of this great house. “I have given you your old room and trust you will be happy to occupy it—but you will see, due to the rebuilding of the house since the fire, that a study or boudoir at the side has been enlarged and a window added, overlooking the park. We do hope the quarters will be satisfactory to you.”

I curtsied by way of reply—for I admit that it was hard to
express gratitude at that moment, when confronted by the reality of my poor cousin's disastrous match. This young woman—who has the air of a child still, to go by her appearance (for all that she is pregnant and not ashamed to show it), in a dress more like a girl's pinafore than the robe that would be fitting to the mistress of a noble estate—this slip of a girl then graciously wished me a very good morning and proceeded to insist on carrying my bags up two stories to my rooms. John, the old servant who had looked after Cousin Edward at Ferndean Manor and earlier at Thornfield, refused to catch my eye when I followed her, remonstrating all the way. Miss Eyre—as we had all known her then—has brought new ways to the Hall, no doubt about it.

Today, after I have done the dining table, horribly neglected, I fear (does the new Mrs. Rochester take advantage of her husband's poor eyesight to overlook the very basics of household cleanliness?), I shall set my plan in action. After the midday meal will be a proper time to speak with my mistress—if she has her son running about the room, there is never enough attention given to important decisions. The little fellow is generally taken off fishing or walking in the afternoon, even Mrs. R, as the staff call her, being too advanced in pregnancy to keep up with a running child.

So I look once more around the red and white drawing room, gleaming now after my exertions, from mahogany side tables to gold ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, and I go to close the curtains, as I invariably do in the absence abroad of Mr. Rochester. This great receiving room, with all the treasures of his distinguished family on display, is not a suitable place for Jane Eyre to sit in, alone. She was not born to the station required by these surroundings: she does better in the small sitting room upstairs.

There is another reason that today is the last occasion I am likely to find to speak to Madam as I must. “Oh, dear Mrs. Fairfax, I have such wonderful news,” Mrs. R called to me last night as I
was going up the stairs to my new boudoir. “Edward returns tomorrow, from France. Oh, cousin, he brings Adèle with him! He has found her there, as I knew he would! Shall I come in and join you a moment, while you sip your tea before going to bed?”

I do not like this type of familiarity between mistress and servant, even if I do enjoy the position of housekeeper, and my husband was a distant relative of the proprietor of Thornfield Hall. I like to keep my place, and my expression must have shown it. Besides this, as Jane must be aware, the police wait to question her husband on the true cause of the death of his first wife, Bertha, and the recent discovery of her corpse in the turnip field beyond the stables. There is little reason, as my new mistress must know, to express delight at the imminent return of Mr. Rochester to his ancestral home.

So today I tapped on the door of the modest sitting room high under the eaves of Thornfield Hall where Jane spreads her books and papers—she is forever reading and studying, though she has no reason for it, now that she is married to the wealthiest landowner for miles around (Mr. Rochester, as it saddens me to say, would be three times better off if he had done the sensible thing and married Miss Ingram, as I always prayed he would). A quiet, clear voice bade me to come in.

“Madam,” I said, standing in the doorway until I was invited to sit down, as I was trained to do. “There are some matters that are left undiscussed between us. The most pressing of these is the murder of your predecessor, Mrs. Bertha Mason Rochester, by Mr. Rochester's ward, little Adèle Varens.”

Jane sat staring at me, and as she failed to ask me to sit, I remained standing. “It was surely an accident, Mrs. Fairfax,” the reply came at last. “If Adèle was indeed implicated, which I doubt, in the death of—of—” and she faltered again, the little impostor who has taken the Rochester name—“then the child will explain,
as soon as she returns. She acted without awareness of what she did. She had no wish, in short, to do harm to—to—”

“You cannot bring yourself to say her name,” I said. “But you must allow me to describe Mrs. Rochester—or Antoinette, as the French girl knew her—as she was when she first came to Thornfield. As bright as one of those moths Master Edward will say is from the West Indies when he finds it dropped from its chrysalis on the library floor, that's how she was. He loved her so passionately, you know. He swore to me, in those far-off days when we all celebrated the arrival of a bride at Thornfield, that he, Edward Rochester, would never love another as he loved his new wife. He was bewitched by her, possessed; anyone could see that.”

“Why are you telling me this?” said Jane after a silence.

“Because there will be great trouble over the discovery of the body of the poor creature,” I answered as clearly as I could. “Mr. Rochester, if I know him, will defend little Adèle right up to the prison door. He will sacrifice himself and make a full confession, rather than see the child punished for her crime.”

Jane rose now, and I saw to my satisfaction that my description of Edward's passion for his first wife had disturbed her peace of mind at last. That is the way with the stubborn: it takes a lot to budge them from their contentment with themselves. “So you intend to speak against Adèle to the police?” she asked me.

“No, madam, I did not say that. Simply that your husband, who never loved you as he loved poor Bertha, will sacrifice himself for the French girl you insisted he bring back to you. For, after Bertha, Céline Varens was the love and light of his life. He will lose his life on the gallows”—and here Jane shuddered and clasped the child still in her womb—“when, my dear madam, you could so easily solve the problem yourself.”

As I spoke, I maneuvered Mrs. Rochester over to the open window of the sitting room, only a few feet away, and placed my arm
about her shoulder. “Should you not consider it, Jane?” I said. “I have your confession here, that you murdered Bertha Mason in order to free Mr. Rochester to marry you. And that, as a result of your guilt and sorrow at your wicked action, you have decided forthwith to end your life. Sign it—and you will truly free the man you love from the scaffold.”

As my prisoner made no move—but, like a strangled rabbit, as I saw it, simply stared wide-eyed up at me—I decided to give a slight push to her lower body. Soon I had Miss Jane Eyre half hanging from the window. I could have let go my hold of her, there and then: she was as light as a feather, despite being with child; but for my own purposes I needed the foolish, trusting creature to sign the confession I had prepared for her before permitting her to plunge to her certain death on the cobbles of the courtyard below. It will take my dear master, as I am fully aware, a little time to recover from the violent end of the young governess he was so set on making his bride, but Edward Fairfax Rochester was born with the family's strength and determination to survive, and to increase the holdings at Thornfield whenever possible. The union with Miss Ingram has surely never been far from the master's mind, only the uncertainty as to the movements and whereabouts of the poor demented Bertha actually holding him back from making an official proposal of marriage. “You should be advised, madam,” I spoke down into young Jane's face (for I do have the generosity of spirit at least to inform the self-aggrandizing little nobody of the truth of events as they took place here at Thornfield, both before and after Miss Eyre, finding herself still to be a spinster of the parish, left the Hall, and I along with most of the other servants were sent off to find new situations). “You see, dear madam, the truth is that Bertha Mason, the first wife of your husband Mr. Rochester, did not leap from the burn
ing battlements at the time of the great fire at Thornfield Hall. I had disposed of her in the summer when she became too much of a menace to the master's wedding plans with Miss Ingram. I shut her out on the roof, and I returned and pushed my dear mistress over the edge to her death far below—as I am shortly about to do with you, Jane. It was a matter of moments for me to run down (it was dark by then, naturally) and pull her from the bushes at the back of the Hall. She was so thin and wasted I could carry her in a sack to the field behind the hayloft, where I buried her.”

“Mrs. Fairfax.” Jane gasped as she struggled to regain her foothold on the floor, and I held her down firmly with a hand more accustomed to hard work, I vouchsafe, than any governess's mitt could be. “Let me go—I beg you. You forget yourself entirely.”

“I shall continue,” I went on, and my tone was grim enough to silence the child-woman again—though, to do her justice, she did not shed a tear or beg for mercy as I had expected her to do. “I shall tell you all there is to know,” I said, “as there is a courage in you that deserves to hear the truth, and as you are about to die. Very well: it was I who began the fire that consumed the Hall, and it was Grace Poole, not the wretched Bertha—or Antoinette, as the French girl insisted on calling her—who fell to her death from the topmost tower at Thornfield and died instantly, as you are about to do.

“For it became clear that even with Bertha disappeared—and was as time passed more and more likely never to return—Mr. Rochester still couldn't find it in him to propose to Miss Ingram. You could see why, and the scandal of his stopped marriage to you had spread through the county; and of course the first Mrs. Rochester was assumed to be living still at Thornfield Hall. I honestly don't know whether Edward thought she was still up there or not. He certainly never went up to the third story. Grace it was who gave me the idea for my plan, that dear Master Edward
should be seen to be liberated at last to marry the woman of his choice. Did it never occur to you, Jane, that the majestic gait and dark tresses of Miss Blanche Ingram resembled those of Bertha—when she had been truly Antoinette, that is, on the windward island where she and her besotted bridegroom made love night and day, caring for no one and nothing but each other? Did you not see that your Mr. Rochester wanted only to repeat the ecstasies of his youth—and that you could be no more than a companion to him, a boy-girl who would fetch and carry for her master but could never satisfy him as he deserves?

“But Grace, who liked to try on poor Bertha's dresses, enjoyed her own likeness to her mistress when she put on the red dress she specially liked. (From a distance, at least; Grace was a powerfully built woman, it was for this reason that she had been taken on by the master, to restrain poor Bertha when she tried to escape.) So my plan grew, and before long I made friends with little Adèle Varens, realizing she could assist me with it. I gave her sleeping powder at night, to bring dreams she would soon be unable to distinguish from reality, and I told her, as she more and more frequently entered these states of illusion and fantasy, that her mother had written to say she would come presently, to marry Mr. Rochester and live at Thornfield Hall. Soon I had the child writing letters to herself and pretending they came from her mother, the vulgar little opera dancer Céline. She would post them in the hollow of the ash tree on the way down to the barn.

“Here it was that I underestimated the folly and greed of Grace Poole. The oaf had the notion of kidnapping Antoinette and hiding her in the barn, in the hope of blackmailing the man who has subsequently become your beloved husband. She—Grace—would keep the whereabouts, and thus the existence, of the master's wife quiet if he paid up enough for her to leave this county and go down to her sister in Devon. So I heard her, drunk as always, talk
ing about her clever blackmail with Leah. But of course all this misfired badly. Grace, thinking she would be rich any day now, failed to keep a strict eye on the Creole—who was rescued from her imprisonment in the barn by the child Adèle. And Mr. Rochester, nervous at the uncertainty of his deranged wife's movements, did not go ahead with the designated proposal to Miss Ingram. More's the pity, I say—I would have looked after details such as the disposing of Bertha Rochester quickly enough. But luckily, all is not lost now. The Ingram-Rochester wedding will take place before the summer is out.”