Staring into the fire, she took a sip from the delicate porcelain teacup poised in her hand, not seeming to notice that anyone else had entered the room.
“Here is Mr. Eyre,” Mr. Fairfax said. “And he’s brought Stephen and Peter.”
“Excellent,” Mrs. Rochester replied, still gazing fixedly into the flames. “Boys? Come here to me.”
John urged Stephen and Peter forward. The boys crossed the distance to Mrs. Rochester, coming to a halt in front of her. Stephen’s hand crept out to take that of his brother.
Mrs. Rochester set down her teacup and saucer and turned to examine her two young wards. Her bronze-and-green-flecked gaze drifted over them, her brows drawn into a frown. Searching, searching. As if the two boys were a puzzle she couldn’t solve.
After a long moment, she reached out and touched Stephen gently on the cheek with the back of her fingers. She touched Peter as well, a soft brush of her hand down the length of his slim arm, culminating with a squeeze of his hand. All the while, she looked into their eyes, and they gazed steadily back at her. Something seemed to pass between the three of them. An unspoken emotion, as strong as speech.
John felt it resonate. A taut silence, but not an empty one. The moment was infused with meaning, as impossible to comprehend as the boys’ whispered words had been two nights before.
If Mr. Fairfax sensed it, he gave no indication. Instead, he seemed to think it necessary to fill the vast silence with an endless stream of chatter. He expressed sympathy for Mrs. Rochester’s injured ankle, marveled at her patience in being confined to the couch, and gave voice to his wish that she remain in residence through the winter. He even made a point of commending John’s work with the boys.
“They’re much improved, aren’t they?” he asked. “And it’s all owing to the efforts of Mr. Eyre. His presence here has been a blessing. You can’t imagine how grateful we all are for your having had the wisdom to hire him. Stephen and Peter are flourishing, I tell you. But that’s plain enough to see. One hardly recognizes them from the sad figures they presented when they arrived here. I didn’t like to say so then, but I was quite afraid for their health.”
“Mr. Fairfax,” she said when the elderly butler at last paused to draw breath, “you may return Stephen and Peter to the nursery. I require a private word with Mr. Eyre.”
Mr. Fairfax cast a worried glance at John as he stood. “Yes, ma’am. As you say.” He ushered Stephen and Peter from the room. “Come along, boys. I will take you back to Nurse.”
The drawing room doors shut behind them.
John remained where he was, standing in respectful silence across from his employer.
Mrs. Rochester regarded him from her place on the sofa. “Are you certain you’re not a curate?”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“You look the very picture of one now. Something about your face. I thought you an ascetic when I encountered you in the lane. Now it seems to me that you’re more in line with a medieval reformer.” She picked up her teacup from the table at her side. “Do sit down, Mr. Eyre.”
He took the seat on the settee lately vacated by Mr. Fairfax.
“You’ve made quite a lot of changes to the rules I set out for my wards,” she said. “I’d be well within my rights to dismiss you.”
The very prospect of losing his employment was enough to make John’s palms grow damp. He was grateful his voice didn’t betray his apprehension. “Yes, I daresay you would.”
“Perhaps I will do.” She took a sip of her tea. “You’ve been resident in my house three months?”
“Yes, ma’am.” John noticed, for the first time, that she was absent a wedding band. A minor thing, to be sure. And yet it seemed an odd lapse for a widow who was, otherwise, sporting such a heavy display of mourning. She was all but veiled.
Her questions continued at a brusque clip, a hint of impatience in her voice. “And you came from—?”
“I was lately employed in Surrey.”
“That much I know. But where is it that you come from, sir? Where were you born? Surely you didn’t spring to life fully formed. Or perhaps you did. Perhaps you’re some otherworldly creature brought here to lurk in the middle of fog-bound lanes.”
“No indeed, ma’am,” he said gravely. “I was born in Hertfordshire.” He anticipated her next question. “In a village called Letchmore Green.”
“And your parents? Do they still reside thereabouts?”
“My parents are no longer living. They died when I was a child.”
“I see.” She lowered her cup. “How, may I ask?”
“An influenza epidemic. It took them swiftly, along with many others in our village.” John had little memory of the events, except that his nurse had bundled him up in a blanket and taken him away. She’d passed him on to another family, who were fleeing to the neighboring town, before taking ill herself.
“What became of you?” Mrs. Rochester asked. “Had you any relations to take you in? Any uncles or aunts, or kindly grandparents?”
“Not a one, kindly or otherwise. I was sent to a charitable school on the outskirts of the county.”
“Ah.” She studied his face. “What age were you?”
“Five.”
“And how long were you there?”
“Until I was twenty.”
“Fifteen years! You must be tenacious of life.” She paused. “Why did you not leave when you came of age?”
“I was offered a position as teacher there. It seemed wise to take it. I had little experience of the world yet, and nothing much to recommend me.”
She tapped one fingertip on her teacup. “Where did you go after you left the charitable school?”
“To a boy’s school in London. I taught there for many years. Nearly four altogether. When the school closed down, I was obliged to move on.”
Her brows lifted slightly.
“The school’s benefactor was killed in a carriage accident,” he explained. “Without funding, it could no longer afford to operate.”
“Is that when you removed to Surrey?”
“No, ma’am. I was employed at another school for a brief while. It was after that—some two years later—that I went to Surrey.”
“And there you taught at a village school? In Lowton?”
“I was the village schoolmaster. Until last year.” John’s mouth went dry. He glanced at the tea tray. “May I?”
“By all means.”
He poured out a cup for himself and took a drink. It was Indian tea—strong, and fragrant.
“Why did you leave Lowton?” she asked.
He lowered his cup back to its saucer. “I decided it was time for a change.”
“So, you placed an advertisement in the newspaper. And Mr. Fairfax answered.” A wry smile edged her mouth. “You came well-recommended. Indeed, the squire’s wife in Lowton gave you a glowing character. One might even say a worshipful one.”
John’s stomach knotted. His gaze briefly fell to the contents of his cup. “I was grateful to her for providing it.”
“Hmm.” Mrs. Rochester leaned back on the sofa. The fabric of her skirts rustled over her petticoats. An alluring sound—and one John hadn’t heard since leaving Lowton. He hadn’t had much occasion, of late, to be in the presence of ladies. “What are your particular skills, sir? Mr. Fairfax would have me believe you an expert in all things, but you and I know better. An education from a charitable school is oft as many times one of God-fearing piousness than of reading, writing, and arithmetic.”
“There was a great deal of religious emphasis at the school,” John conceded.
Rather too much. The children had often been deprived of food and warmth. The proprietor claimed that such deprivations brought them closer to God. In reality, it had only made them weaker and more susceptible to illness. During John’s time th
ere, many children had died.
“I suppose, then, that you can quote me scripture and verse of your Bible,” Mrs. Rochester said.
“If you require it. I was also taught more practical skills. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, I know something of globes, a little French and Italian, music, and—”
“Drawing? Mr. Fairfax says you carry a sketchpad about the grounds, and that you’ve been teaching the boys to draw, as well.”
“I’ve been giving them some instruction, yes, ma’am.”
“I suppose you fancy yourself an artist.”
“Not at all. I have only a modest talent, but I believe the boys are learning—and deriving pleasure from their efforts.”
“A modest talent? I shall be the judge of that.” She made an impatient gesture toward the door. “Well, Mr. Eyre? Fetch your portfolio.”
He retrieved it from the library and brought it to her. She took it without a word. John returned to his seat, watching her flip through the contents with a vague feeling of uneasiness. He’d shared his portfolio before—with other employers, as well as with his students. And yet it was an infinitely personal thing. A unique expression of his vision. A glimpse at how he viewed the world, and the people around him.
She scrutinized each sketch and painting, turning them over when she’d finished with them. Some she held longer than others, her eyes drifting over the work with greater interest. “This landscape,” she said as she perused a watercolor. “Is it somewhere in Hertfordshire?”
“No, ma’am. It’s a place I imagined.”
She turned to the next painting in his portfolio. “What of this subject? Was she also a product of your imagination?”
John’s chest tightened. “No. That one was taken from life.”
Mrs. Rochester looked over the portrait. It was a watercolor, like the painting before it, but there the similarity ended. There was no darkness to the delicate rendering, only light. The golden sun of a glittering summer afternoon, shining on the subject’s blond hair and illuminating the perfect oval of her face. John had mixed the blue tint for her eyes with special care. A subtle shade, with a mild sheen to it. It was the only thing to hint at the sadness within.
“Who is she?” Mrs. Rochester asked.
He cleared his throat. “She was the squire’s wife in Lowton.”
“Ah, I see,” she said. “The lady who gave you such an impeccable character.” And then: “Was?”
“She died recently.”
Mrs. Rochester’s eyes briefly met his over the painting. “You begin to worry me, Mr. Eyre. It seems you’ve left a trail of bodies in your wake. Is there anyone for whom you’ve worked that still lives? Or am I, myself, now in peril?”
A flare of indignation ignited in John’s breast. He reminded himself of Mr. Fairfax’s words—that Mrs. Rochester was eccentric. That she enjoyed putting people out of countenance. But to make light of Helen’s death? To mock the very losses that had brought him low? “Mrs. Rochester,” he began. “The tragedies of my past—”
“What is this?”
John broke off. She’d turned to the next painting in his portfolio. But it wasn’t a painting. It was a charcoal drawing.
And it wasn’t one of his.
He leaned forward in his seat to get a better view. “I was wondering that myself. Stephen sketched it the first day I provided him with paper and pencils.”
Mrs. Rochester stared down at the drawing, an expression in her eyes that was hard to read. “Did he.”
“It’s a subject of his own devising. Something he imagined. Or perhaps that he’s seen before. A window, I thought. Do you recognize it, ma’am?”
“No. Of course not.” Her face had gone pale in the firelight. “It’s nothing. A child’s nightmare. You shouldn’t indulge them in sketching such grim scenes.” And then, before John could discern her intention, she crumpled the drawing in her fist and tossed it into the fireplace. It immediately caught flame.
“Wait!” He lunged to retrieve it. “You shouldn’t have—”
She turned on him in a fury. “How dare you?” Her voice was low and fierce, sending him back into his seat as Stephen’s drawing burned to cinders. “You know nothing of those boys, and nothing of my reasons for keeping them the way I do. You think to dictate to me? To override my decisions as if I were some silly woman with no notion of what I’m about?”
He drew back at the heat of her words. Confused. Speechless. He’d been scolded by employers before—shouted at and reprimanded. And he’d borne it, always. There was little choice when one was in a subordinate position. But this time—this time—his temper rose within him at the injustice of her anger. Hadn’t he helped the boys? Hadn’t he made progress?
It was all he could do to respond in a civilized manner.
“When I arrived here,” he said, “the children were in a terrible state.”
“The children were being looked after! According to my orders. And here I find out that you’ve countermanded those orders. That you’ve—”
“Their tonic—”
“Yes, yes. So I understand. You think it useless. A patent medicine bought by witless fools to treat imaginary ailments. Tell me, sir, do I look like a fool?”
He answered grudgingly. “No, ma’am.”
“No, indeed. There are rules in this house, laid down for the protection of those children, and for everyone else hereabouts. I owe you no explanation for anything. Even less, for after meeting you this evening, I’m hard-pressed to decide whether I wish you to remain here.” At that, she closed his portfolio and thrust it back at him.
He took it from her, his heart racing. Good lord. Had he just been given the sack? He looked at Mrs. Rochester. She was, once again, half reclined on her sofa, her expression drawn inward. She appeared to have already mentally dismissed him.
“I’m sorry if I’ve given offense,” he said. “It wasn’t my—”
“That will be all, Mr. Eyre. I grow weary.”
“Yes, ma’am. But if you would—”
“Enough.” She waved him away.
There was nothing John could do but withdraw. Relinquishing his seat, he walked stiffly to the door and opened it. He’d no sooner done so than Mrs. Rochester spoke again, her words echoing at his back as he exited the room.
“We shall revisit the subject of your employment tomorrow,” she said. “You may depend upon it.”
After a restless night, John rose at dawn resolved to face the consequences of his actions. If he lost his position, so be it. He’d done what was right—what he still believed was right. The boys were visible proof of that.
He felt a twinge of regret at the prospect of leaving them. Or perhaps more than a twinge. His emotions had been half dead when he came to Thornfield, but working with Stephen and Peter had gone a long way toward resurrecting them. His life was beginning to have meaning again. A purpose. And now, to have it all jerked away from him… It hardly seemed fair.
It wasn’t fair.
But such was the fate of a man in his position, existing at the whims of his betters. Which was precisely why he shouldn’t have permitted himself to become attached.
Descending the stairs to the hall, he let himself out through a side door and crossed the frost-covered lawn to the adjacent meadow where the thorn trees clustered. He often walked there in the early hours before breakfast. It gave him a chance to clear his head. To rid himself of the lingering effects of the laudanum he’d inevitably taken the night before.
Only a teaspoonful last evening. A brimming one. Enough to dull the pain, and to ease him into sleep.
Head bent, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he strode through the meadow and into the trees. A crumbling stone bench stood within the canopy of branches. He liked to sit there of a morning. To mentally prepare himself for the day ahead.
> Today would require more preparation than usual. With Mrs. Rochester in residence, he had no notion how best to proceed. He didn’t even know if he’d have a job by this time tomorrow.
“Good morning, Mr. Eyre.”
John looked up with a start.
Mrs. Rochester was seated on the stone bench, her figure half shadowed by the bare branches of the thorn trees. She was in mourning dress again—another plain black gown with long, tight sleeves and an equally form-fitting bodice. There was nothing particularly alluring about it. It nevertheless served to accentuate the swell of her bosom and the comparative narrowness of her waist, drawing his eyes, quite against his will.
“Mrs. Rochester,” he said when he found his voice. “Good morning.”
“Mr. Fairfax informed me that you were accustomed to walking here.”
“I am. That is…I do. Most mornings. But how…” He inwardly cursed his lack of eloquence. It wasn’t his habit to become tongue-tied in the presence of a lady. “Your ankle—”
“It’s much improved today. Not entirely healed, but well enough to put my weight on.” A cashmere shawl was twined loosely through her arms. The soft fabric had been dyed black to match her gown. “You’re surprised to see me.”
“A little.”
“You shouldn’t be. I don’t believe in prolonging unpleasantness. Better to get it over with.”
“Is there going to be unpleasantness?”
“Possibly.” She frowned at him. “Come here.”
John approached slowly. He felt rather like a fly being invited into the web of a spider. An exceedingly handsome spider, but a spider nonetheless. He came to a halt in front of her, fervently wishing that he’d taken more time with his appearance this morning before setting out for his walk. His black hair was disheveled, absent even a single drop of macassar oil to tame it, and he wore no hat to hide its condition. Along with his rumpled waistcoat and trousers, it put him at a distinct disadvantage, especially when faced with the composed figure that Mrs. Rochester presented.
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