Jane Steele

by Lyndsay Faye

  “Yes,” I answered, thinking only, What terrible fate befell Karman Kaur that you will not speak of?

  “I was involved in the Battle of Sobraon, which was decisive.” His voice was brittle as glass, and suddenly I remembered Sack’s words, his implication that Mr. Thornfield had been severely hurt in the conflict. “Sack and Clements arrived just as the fighting ended, in an advisory capacity, though I can’t speak as to their movements because I had been injured—sweet Jane, don’t look like that, it was only a scratch from a tulwar across my back and upper shoulder, just here, but the blasted cut was infected and I spent a hellish fortnight hardly aware of myself. Clements was at my side whenever he could be. I never forgot that. It was a kindness.”

  “Then I am grateful to him,” I whispered.

  Mr. Thornfield’s eyes creased in acknowledgement. “After I recovered, as treaty preparations were finalised, I returned to Lahore. Both Lavell and Karman had been killed in the interim. Lavell played one dirty trick too many and ended up with a sliced throat in Amritsar, and when I have occasion to meditate upon that, Jane, my heart is filled with gladness and song.”

  “In future, so shall mine be, Mr. Thornfield.”

  Mr. Thornfield sat forward again. “Lahore was filling with dangerous types in the vacuum naturally caused when a region destabilises. I’m afraid Sardar and I then made a decision still more stupid than stealing his sister’s unholy stock of jewels; fearful of the thieves swarming the city, we decided to hide ’em in plain sight, and employed Sahjara’s doll trunk. Sardar’s mum and my shameless buccaneering parents passed a delightful afternoon stuffing dolls with diamonds we’d pried out of their prongs and decorating their little bodies with precious stones. Sahjara was only five, but she had the finest French doll collection outside Paris, and when they were through, you might not have noticed it was anything but a trunk full of the most opulent chico’s toys on Earth.”

  Raptly, I questioned, “Who did notice?”

  “Augustus Sack,” Mr. Thornfield snarled. “We had told Sahjara that her trunk was forbidden for the time being, which was a fantastic error—she scarce ever touched those dolls in the first place, but we had reminded her of ’em, you see. When Sack returned to Lahore, the maggot, he went to Sardar’s house to pay respects and there she was, playing with a doll covered in rubies. Instead of waiting for Sardar, he asked Sahjara if she would show him the doll’s sisters, which she was happy to do. Sack recalled Lavell’s hysterics over Karman’s missing treasure, he added two and two together, and he decided they spelt blackmail.”

  “How did he go about it?”

  “Ah, there’s the clever part, that thrice-damned son of a bitch. He told Clements that Sardar and I must have stolen Karman’s jewels before the war broke out, recalled Lavell’s lamentations to Clements’s mind, and asked Clements, as honourable Company men, what should be done about it considering we were all such close mates? Then Sack suggested that, since Karman and Lavell were both dead, why should they not confront us privately, without bringing the Director into it, seizing the trunk and holding it in trust for Sahjara until she came of age? You can imagine how that would have played out.”

  “How did it play out?”

  “Exactly as they wanted it to, save for the fact the trunk had disappeared!” he exclaimed, slapping his palm against his thigh. “We had been keeping it quite in the open, not knowing Sack had designs on it. It was gone. It remains gone. Some lucky burcha came in through the window and is whoring his way through Kashmir to this very day.”

  “What happened afterwards?”

  “Sack thought that between Sardar, myself, and Sahjara, someone was playing the crooked cross, and someone knew where the trunk was.” His voice was full of stones. “He bullied us, threatened us, talked of chowkdars, of driving me out of the Company and Sardar out of Lahore.”

  “You rebuffed them.”

  “We thought that best.”

  “Was it?”

  Mr. Thornfield studied his stiff scarlet gloves where they yet lay upon the table, and not once did he look up until he had finished. “Sack ordered Sahjara abducted a week later by a half-caste badmash named Jack Ghosh he sometimes used for his dirty work. You not six hours ago killed Jack Ghosh, an act which I assure you deserves a medal and a pension. Sardar and I practically lost our minds when we had word that Ghosh would feed her when we had delivered the trunk to a secret locale. We, I remind you, did not have the trunk.”

  My lips parted in horror. I thought of Sahjara—her complete candour, her keen black eyes—and could not help but shudder. She had never come downstairs, so I lived in hope that the events of the previous night had not touched her.

  “How long did it take you to find her?”

  “Four days,” he rasped. He pressed his hand over his mouth, then continued. “Clements knew nothing of the scheme, thinking Ghosh had acted alone after hearing of the trunk from Sack, so he was of no use in finding her, though he aided all our efforts—as for Sack, he made certain to be away from Lahore at the time, or I should have knocked her whereabouts straight from his skull. Sahjara was locked in a desert stable when we found her, by which I mean a tent with horses in it, all alone, her captor fled. Ghosh had kept her quiet by having her feed and brush and water the animals, telling her when she was finished, she could eat. She was never quite the same afterwards.”

  Tears were streaming from my eyes. “Oh, Mr. Thornfield.”

  “It’s not the worst event I’ve ever caused.” He laughed unsteadily. “Enough of this. We retrieved her. Of course we realised who was behind it all, but there was no evidence—only Sack’s knowing little smirk when I stormed into his offices raving over the kidnap. The Company was in full force by that time, secretaries and clerks thick as fleas, but Ghosh had fled and I couldn’t accuse Sack without exposing the original theft. So I went to my superior officers, begging for Ghosh to be found—they laughed in my face. What was the disappearance of a half-caste villain to the subjugation of an empire?”

  “Did they offer you no assistance?”

  “The most they would do was provide a guardian to send Sahjara to my paternal aunt’s house in Cornwall, for she started at every shadow in Lahore, and I was still in the employ of the Director. Sardar thought of accompanying her, but his mother was ill at the time, and fresh fighting loomed, so we put Sahjara in the frankly doting care of a wounded lieutenant returning to his family. That put Sack off long enough for the second Sikh war to break out, and there you have it. After I inherited this place, I sold my commission, and Sardar and I were bumping across the desert from Suez to Cairo in the back of a wagon to take the steam route here from Alexandria.”

  I pulled at my hair, wanting the dull ache. “Do you think Sack tired of waiting and sent Ghosh on this occasion as well?”

  “Very likely. I’m only glad he’s stone dead in the morgue downstairs.”

  “Did Sahjara ever wake?”

  “Yes, but we bundled her off with Garima Kaur, so she’s quite snug, thank heaven. If anything should have happened to her here … Jane, I am forever in your debt. I’ve never managed to do as much for her.”

  “You gave up your home for her, sir. You gave up everything.”

  “Ridiculous. Christ, if I never see the Punjab again, it’ll be too soon. I have her, and Sardar, and this house, and that’s a deuced sight more than I merit.”

  I thought of Clarke long ago, our fleeing to London and her telling me I was home, and was so deep in lightless conjectures I nearly missed Mr. Thornfield saying, “And now a true friend in you, Jane.”

  Suddenly nauseated, I shivered. A wall which has been well constructed with strong stones and good masonry can defend against many a dire circumstance; but put a single crack in that mossy edifice, and a former fortress is as good as a pile of rocks.

  They knew me for a killer; Clarke’s words regarding Hugh and Bertha Grizzlehurst rang in my ear as if her lips were pressed to the lobe.

  She’ll never be
able to look him in the face again without knowing—can you imagine the torment?

  “Jane, wherever you’ve gone to, please come back to me, or anyway what’s left of me at the moment,” a rough voice pleaded.

  Standing unsteadily, I shook my head. I must have looked a fright, traces of blood on my gown, mermaid hair snaking its brown waves all about my waxen face. I set the glass down and made for the door.

  “Let me—”

  “I’m fine on my own.”

  “You most certainly are not.”

  “Alone, I want to be alone.”

  “You really do, and for the first time I’ve ever observed. Is this to be the end of the peculiar smile I see form whensoever you spy me? I can imagine it all too easily—no warm tilt of your head, no spark of light in your eye. Do you think me a blackguard following that terrible account, Jane?” he questioned raggedly, the edge of his sleeve painted ivory by the brightening dawn rays bleeding through the curtains.

  “I think you an eyewitness,” I gasped before I could stop myself, but he did not know what I meant, he could never ever know what I meant, so I ran from the room and up the stairs and locked the door and did not emerge again that day.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and oh! with agony I thought of what I left!

  After a sleep which felt more like drowning than rest, tempests tossing me, I awoke to discover it was dark. Silently, I crept to the door, gazing out into the corridor; no one was there, but a tray of bread and cheese and fruit had been left, and a bottle of wine, and I quickly collected these, shutting myself in once more.

  Tying my messy hair into a painful braid, I stoked the fire which had burnt down to coals. The sustenance was accompanied by a note:

  Dear Jane,

  I should have set myself as guardian over your gate forever, save that I cannot know whether I inspire feelings of safety and security in you or dampen them, and immediate arrangements must be made. You shall not be disturbed, I vow, and should you wish to disturb any of us, a bell rung will be answered upon the instant. I cannot help but live in hope I might be called for personally, but already owe you far too great a debt to make any further presumptions.

  Sahjara is from home, staying with Mrs. Garima Kaur in the cottage with the grooms rotating watches over them. Whilst investigating last night’s siege, we thought it best; should you wish to repair there, arrangements would be made with all haste, and the place has been thoroughly cleaned and heated.

  It grows less and less bearable to consider denying you any wishes, come to that, save only those beyond my power—if you can imagine a way I might ease the burden a good woman like yourself should never have had to bear, I beg you to command me.

  Your servant,

  Charles Thornfield

  Laughing at the depth of this miscalculation, I forced myself to eat food which turned to cinders on my tongue, washing all down with half the bottle of wine and a larger dose of laudanum than I had taken since my London days, for my head felt as if a glowing poker had struck it.

  It was not, I ought to clarify, troubling to me that Jack Ghosh was no longer numbered among the living; he had hurt a little girl I had grown to love, and in any case, he had not precisely inspired esteem during our brief acquaintance. No, he could rot for all I cared, and he would, too—but he had smashed my dam and now the seawater was up to my neck.

  I could live a complete lie, I comprehended as I sorted through the knotted threads of dread in my chest; I could not live a partial one.

  Already, falling in love with Charles Thornfield had meant dropping truths in his path like so many bread crumbs, and though he may have approved my stabbing Jack Ghosh, however could I justify four previous killings? The number was outrageous. I could neither lie, nor could I confess; and I could neither pull down his walls without candour nor risk baring my hollowed heart.

  When Jane Eyre understands that she must depart from Mr. Rochester or else become his mistress and not his wife, her eyes remain entirely dry, and her former fiancé surmises that her heart must have been weeping blood before he begs her to stay. I admire this passage for a number of reasons—not merely because it is beautiful, but because I can be moved by it even when recalling my own experience of leaving Highgate House, and my reasons for doing so, and want to shake the other Jane’s damn fool head off for leaving a gentleman who loved her so, and was remorseful for his error. For I understood that night—not with a dry eye, either—that as much as I had come to adore Sahjara and esteem Mr. Singh, I could not love Mr. Thornfield every livelong day without having him.

  I could have lived off my fingers in his white hair, or my brow against his collarbone, or the whole expanse of our bared skin nestled together in sleep, or my lips against his rugged temple. I had done far worse things for love than entwine fingers or kiss the nape of a neck, had I not? The prospect of total famine, however, dying of thirst and nothing betwixt me and the glass of water resting on the table—I cannot imagine that anyone could have done it.

  Very well, I determined around midnight, my eyes crimson and my head pounding. You will live as you used to, and life is a tenuous thing after all, so one day inevitably the hurt will stop.

  There was still the matter of Highgate House, however, so I located the fateful letter from London and opened it with shaking fingers.

  SNEEVES, SWANSEA, AND TURNER

  No. 29C Lisle Street,

  Westminster

  Dear Miss Steele,

  Though you addressed your letter to Mr. Swansea, that gentleman passed away six years hence, necessitating my own return from abroad; thus, know that it is Mr. Cyrus Sneeves who addresses you. If you are able to call upon me at the above address, I believe I can make your position clear to you; in fact, I consider it my duty to do so, as I may have an unexpected opportunity to right a wrong which I had begun to consider permanent.

  I regret the loss of my partner but rejoice in the fact your appeal found me. Forgive my reticence but the matter is of such delicacy that to confide it to ink and paper would be unforgivable. There even exist solicitors who abhor scandal, if you can credit me, and I number myself among them.

  Humbly,

  Cyrus Sneeves, Esq.

  My blood seemed to thin as a weightless excitement filled me.

  No longer did I delude myself that I could usurp Highgate House from people I had grown to love; but if the property were clearly mine, perhaps I should not have to pen gallows ballads, or perhaps I could pen them from the relative luxury of a small Chelsea flat. I should not ask Mr. Thornfield for any staff or horses: merely enough of an allowance that I might live well, and my other expenses should be supplied by my writing. Mr. Thornfield had, after all, given a thousand pounds each to the white servants who had left his employ; surely I, a woman for whom he harboured a slight attachment, could request assistance when Highgate House was legally mine?

  And think that twice yearly—no, once a month, you might insist upon once a month—a cheque would be delivered to Mr. Sneeves and perhaps a letter with it! If you had his letters, you could have as much of him as here at Highgate House.

  I dried my eyes. This would not be an ideal life, living with a tiny gouge where my heart had once been; but it would be a possible one, one which would make waiting to die more tolerable.

  Since he could not touch me, what was it to him if I was here or in London? I had been accounted a good enough writer to earn my stout and oysters by it; if the endearments I showered him with, all the languidly falling petals of my shaken tree, were written rather than spoken, so much the better—he could read them over whensoever he liked, shove them in a drawer if he preferred, and my love would have some permanence, the way whispers made in the dead of night do not.

  I retained
his first letter by accident, the one regarding my ankle—I had set it upon the mantelpiece and simply forgot to bin it. Standing, I went to fetch the artefact; for a few seconds, I studied the curve of his e’s, and then I carefully refolded this as well as the latest note and placed them in the grey reticule I had bought at a slop shop off Covent Garden, thinking it would suit a governess.

  Then I went to the mirror to survey the carnage; my features were so petite that eighty percent of them were blotchy, and my eyes so large that the whites appeared bloody pools. Washing my face in cold water helped a bit, and—when I beheld myself again—I realised that there was a third reason to go to London other than escaping Mr. Thornfield and finding Mr. Sneeves.

  If I could settle this dark affair for the residents of Highgate House, would that not be a fine thing?

  Resolved, I took a quiet moment to regard Aunt Patience’s old room with all its lovely new trappings, the draperies in impossible shades of lavender and plum, the melancholy patina of winter moonlight … and then I set to packing.

  • • •

  Getting my things in order was not difficult, and I spent the rest of the night in a downy laudanum haze, only stopping the small doses when I collapsed into bed a mere few hours after quitting it. A brightly scouring sun woke me early, for I had forgot to draw the curtains; this was for the best, however, and I did my hair up carefully but looser than usual. Lifting my trunk, I carried it downstairs and left it in the hall.

  The coward in me wanted to avoid Mr. Thornfield entirely and simply ask one of the Singhs in the stables to drop me in town. When I thought of the crags of his cynical brows, however, I knew I must explain myself or go mad to the tune of hearing, Do you think me a blackguard following that terrible account, Jane? So I went to the parlour and dining room and, finding them deserted, approached his study and knocked.

  “Enter.”

  I peered in; Mr. Thornfield was writing a hurried correspondence, but he levered to his feet, rounding the desk. Either his gloves had been cleaned or he owned multiple pairs, for his linens were spotless and his cravat a rich flourish of burgundy; his cheeks below their sharp angles were sunken, however, and his eyes clearly questioned whether he was about to receive a greeting or a curse.