John Eyre

by Mimi Matthews

  Her vision clouded with tears. She turned from the private parlor, mumbling an apology to Mr. Boothroyd as she went.

  “Miss Reynolds?” Mr. Boothroyd called. “Have you changed your mind?”

  She looked back, confused, only to see that the other lady was gone and that Mr. Boothroyd stood alone in the entryway. From his seat by the fire, the tall gentleman ruffled a newspaper, seeming to be wholly unconcerned with either of them. “No, sir,” she said.

  “If you will have a seat.” He gestured to one of the chairs that surrounded a small supper table. On the table was a stack of papers and various writing implements. She watched him rifle through them as she took a seat. “I trust you had a tolerable journey.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “You took the train from London?”

  “I did, sir, but only as far as Barnstaple. Mr. Finchley arranged for passage on an accommodation coach to bring me the rest of the way here. It’s one of the reasons I’m late. There was an overturned curricle in the road. The coachman stopped to assist the driver.”

  “One of the reasons, you say?”

  “Yes, I…I missed the earlier train at the station,” she confessed. “I’d been waiting at the wrong platform and…by the time I realized my error, my train had already gone. I was obliged to change my ticket and take the next one.”

  “Have you no maid with you? No traveling companion?”

  “No, sir. I traveled alone.” There hadn’t been much choice. Jenny had to remain in London, to conceal Helena’s absence as long as possible. Helena had considered hiring someone to accompany her, but there’d been no time and precious little money to spare. Besides which, she didn’t know who she could trust.

  Mr. Boothroyd continued to sift through his papers. Helena wondered if he was even listening to her. “Ah. Here it is,” he said at last. “Your initial reply to the advertisement.” He withdrew a letter covered in small, even handwriting which she recognized as her own. “As well as a letter from Mr. Finchley in London with whom you met on the fifteenth.” He perused a second missive with a frown.

  “Is anything the matter?” she asked.

  “Indeed. It says here that you are five and twenty.” Mr. Boothroyd lowered the letter. “You do not look five and twenty, Miss Reynolds.”

  “I assure you that I am, sir.” She began to work at the ribbons of her gray silk traveling bonnet. After untying the knot with unsteady fingers, she lifted it from her head, twined the ribbons round it, and placed it atop her carpetbag. When she raised her eyes, she found Mr. Boothroyd staring at her. “I always look much younger in a bonnet. But, as you can see now, I’m—”

  “Young and beautiful,” he muttered with disapproval.

  She blushed, glancing nervously at the gentleman by the fire. He did not seem to be listening, thank goodness. Even so, she leaned forward in her chair, dropping her voice. “Does Mr. Thornhill not want a pretty wife?”

  “This isn’t London, Miss Reynolds. Mr. Thornhill’s house is isolated. Lonely. He seeks a wife who can bear the solitude. Who can manage his home and see to his comforts. A sturdy, capable sort of woman. Which is precisely why the advertisement specified a preference for a widow or spinster of more mature years.”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “What Mr. Thornhill doesn’t want,” he continued, “is a starry-eyed girl who dreams of balls and gowns and handsome suitors. A marriage with such a frivolous creature would be a recipe for disaster.”

  Helena bristled. “That isn’t fair, sir.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’m no starry-eyed girl. I never was. And with respect, Mr. Boothroyd, you haven’t the slightest notion of my dreams. If I wanted balls and gowns or…or frivolous things…I’d never have answered Mr. Thornhill’s advertisement.”

  “What exactly do you seek out of this arrangement, Miss Reynolds?”

  She clasped her hands tightly in her lap to stop their trembling. “Security,” she answered honestly. “And perhaps…a little kindness.”

  “You couldn’t find a gentleman who met these two requirements in London?”

  “I don’t wish to be in London. Indeed, I wish to be as far from London as possible.”

  “You friends and family…?”

  “I’m alone in the world, sir.”

  “I see.”

  Helena doubted that very much. “Mr. Boothroyd, if you’ve already decided someone else is better suited—”

  “There is no one else, Miss Reynolds. At present, you’re the only lady Mr. Finchley has recommended.”

  “But the woman who was here before—”

  “Mrs. Standish?” Mr. Boothroyd removed his spectacles. “She was applying for the position of housekeeper at the Abbey.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Regrettably, we have an ongoing issue with retaining adequate staff. It’s something you should be aware of if you intend to take up residence.”

  She exhaled slowly. “A housekeeper. Of course. How silly of me. Mr. Thornhill mentioned the difficulties you were having with servants in one of his letters.”

  “I’m afraid it’s proven quite a challenge.” Mr. Boothroyd settled his spectacles back on his nose. “Not only is the house isolated, it has something of a local reputation. Perhaps you’ve heard…?”

  “A little. But Mr. Finchley told me it was nothing more than ignorant superstition.”

  “Quite so. However, in this part of the world, Miss Reynolds, you’ll find ignorance is in ready supply.”

  Helena was unconcerned. “I should like to see the Abbey for myself.”

  “Yes, yes. All in good time.”

  “And I should like to meet Mr. Thornhill.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Mr. Boothroyd shuffled through his papers again. To her surprise, a rising color crept into the elderly man’s face. “There are just one or two more points at issue, Miss Reynolds.” He cleared his throat. “You’re aware, I presume… That is, I do hope Mr. Finchley explained…this marriage is to be a real marriage in every sense of the word.”

  She looked at him, brows knit in confusion. “What other kind of marriage would it be?”

  “And you’re agreeable?”

  “Of course.”

  He made no attempt to disguise his skepticism. “There are many ladies who would find such an arrangement singularly lacking in romance.”

  Helena didn’t doubt it. She’d have balked at the prospect herself once. But much had changed in the past year—and in the past months, especially. Any girlish fantasies she’d harbored about true love were dead. In their place was a rather ruthless pragmatism.

  “I don’t seek romance, Mr. Boothroyd. Only kindness. And Mr. Finchley said that Mr. Thornhill was a kind man.”

  Mr. Boothroyd appeared to be surprised by this. “Did he indeed,” he murmured. “What else did he tell you, pray?”

  She hesitated before repeating the words that Mr. Finchley had spoken. Words that had convinced her once and for all to travel to a remote coastal town in Devon, to meet and marry a complete stranger. “He told me that Mr. Thornhill had been a soldier, and that he knew how to keep a woman safe.”

  Justin Thornhill cast another brooding glance at the pale, dark-haired beauty sitting across from Boothroyd. She was slight but shapely, her modest traveling gown doing nothing to disguise the high curve of her breasts and the narrow lines of her small waist. When first he’d seen her in the taproom, he thought she was a fashionable traveler on her way to Abbot’s Holcombe, the resort town farther up the coast. He had no reason to think otherwise. The Miss Reynolds he’d been expecting—the plain, sensible spinster who’d responded to his matrimonial advertisement—had never arrived.

  This Miss Reynolds was a different class of woman altogether.

  She sat across from Boothroyd, her back ramrod straight, and her elegant, gloved hands folded nea
tly on her lap in a pretty attitude. She regarded the curmudgeonly steward with wide, doelike hazel eyes and when she spoke, she did so in the smooth, cultured tones of a gentlewoman. No, Justin amended. Not a gentlewoman. A lady.

  She was nothing like the two sturdy widows Boothroyd had interviewed earlier for the position of housekeeper. Those women had, ironically, been more in line with Justin’s original specifications—the specifications he had barked at his aging steward those many months ago when Boothroyd had first broached the idea of his advertising for a wife.

  “I have no interest in courtship,” he’d said, “nor in weeping young ladies who take to their bed with megrims. What I need is a woman. A woman who is bound by law and duty to see to the running of this godforsaken mausoleum. A woman I can bed on occasion. Damnation, Boothroyd, I didn’t survive six years in India so I could live like a bloody monk when I returned home.”

  They were words spoken in frustration after the last in a long line of housekeepers had quit without notice. Words that owed a great deal to physical loneliness and far too many glasses of strong spirits.

  The literal-minded Boothroyd had taken them as his marching orders.

  The next morning, before Justin had even arisen from his alcohol-induced slumber, his ever-efficient steward had arranged for an advertisement to be placed in the London papers. It had been brief and to the point:

  MATRIMONY: Retired army officer, thirty-two, of moderate means and quiet disposition wishes to marry a spinster or widow of the same age. Suitable lady will be sensible, compassionate, and capable of managing the household of remote country property. Independent fortune unimportant. Letters to be addressed, postpaid, to Mr. T. Finchley, Esq., Fleet Street.

  Justin had initially been angry. He’d even threatened to give Boothroyd the sack. However, within a few days he’d found himself warming to the idea of acquiring a wife by advertisement. It was modern and efficient. As straightforward as any other business transaction. The prospective candidates would simply write to Thomas Finchley, Justin’s London attorney, and Finchley would negotiate the rest, just as competently as he’d negotiated the purchase of Greyfriar’s Abbey or those shares Justin had recently acquired in the North Devon Railway.

  Still, he had no intention of making the process easy. He’d informed both Boothroyd and Finchley that he would not bestir himself on any account. If a prospective bride wanted to meet, she would have to do so at a location within easy driving distance of the Abbey.

  He’d thought such a condition would act as a deterrent.

  It hadn’t occurred to him that women routinely traveled such distances to take up employment. And what was his matrimonial advertisement if not an offer for a position in his household?

  In due time, Finchley had managed to find a woman for whom an isolated existence in a remote region of coastal Devon sounded agreeable. Justin had even exchanged a few brief letters with her. Miss Reynolds hadn’t written enough for him to form a definite picture of her personality, nor of her beauty—or lack thereof. Nevertheless, he’d come to imagine her as a levelheaded spinster. The sort of spinster who would endure his conjugal attentions with subdued dignity. A spinster who wouldn’t burst into tears at the sight of his burns.

  The very idea that anything like this lovely young creature would grace his table and his bed was frankly laughable.

  Not but that she wasn’t determined.

  Though that was easily remedied. Folding his paper, Justin rose from his chair. “I’ll take it from here, Boothroyd.”

  Miss Reynold’s eyes lifted to his. He could see the exact moment when she realized who he was. To her credit, she didn’t cry or faint or spring from her chair and bolt out of the room. She merely looked at him in that same odd way she had in the taproom when first she beheld his burns.

  “Miss Reynolds,” Mr. Boothroyd said, “may I present Mr. Thornhill?”

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  At this point, some of you might be wondering why on earth I would ever combine Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Bram Stoker’s Dracula in a retelling. I had many reasons for doing so (which I’ll elaborate below), but the simplest is this: in the text of Jane Eyre, there are several references to monsters, bloodsucking, and even vampires. They include the following:

  After Bertha attacks and bites her brother, Richard Mason, Mason tells Mr. Rochester: “She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart.”

  Jane tells Mr. Rochester that the gruesome-looking figure who crept into her room one night reminded her “Of the foul German spectre—the Vampyre.”

  During another conversation, Mr. Rochester relates the difficulties involved with getting Bertha home to Thornfield, stating: “To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel.”

  From those lines (which I included in John Eyre) and others, it was easy for me to imagine that the person locked away on the third floor was, in fact, a monster.

  Similarly, my decision to make Mr. Rochester the villain, was based on actual scenes from Jane Eyre, as well as on my evolving view of the character himself. When I was younger, I used to think Jane Eyre was a deeply romantic novel, and Mr. Rochester an equally romantic hero. However, on subsequent readings (and with my own advancing years), I began to notice all the ways that Mr. Rochester exploits Jane’s innocence and takes advantage of his position of power. He also speaks disparagingly of every other woman he’s been with, employing the age-old tactic of implying that Jane is “different” from them, and therefore, worthier of better treatment.

  Where does Dracula fit into all of this? There were already vampire connections between Jane Eyre and Dracula to play with, but I also really liked the idea of Bertha facing a situation somewhat similar to that faced by Jonathan Harker. Except, unlike Harker’s mentally and physically debilitating experience as prisoner to the Count, Bertha’s imprisonment ultimately serves to reveal the full, magnificent extent of what she’s capable of as a woman.

  And that’s the final element of inspiration for John Eyre: strong women. Though John is, in many ways, the main character, it’s Bertha who holds power as the story’s true heroine. I began writing John Eyre during the height of the #MeToo movement. Several predatory men were being dragged, vampire-like, from the shadows and made to face the sunlight. The women who accused them were rarely in positions of power. They’d previously been doubted, demeaned, or dismissed. Others had kept silent for years for fear of the same. It made me think a lot about allyship and the importance of women having friends and partners who listen to and believe them. In many ways, that’s the role John serves for Bertha—not her savior, but her ally.

  John Eyre is my first effort at a retelling/reimagining/fanfic of a classic novel. When writing it, I wanted to keep the basic framework of Jane Eyre to provide a feeling of familiarity that would (hopefully) make the supernatural gothic bits seem scarier as they blended into classic elements of the story. To that end, you can be sure that if I used a description or piece of dialogue from Jane Eyre I did so with specific intention.

  I understand that some of you might prefer that authors not tamper with the classics. But here’s something I’ve learned as a reader: none of the stories in the huge canon of retellings and fanfic take away from the originals. Quite the opposite. In most instances, the retellings are borne of a deep and abiding love for the source material. That’s certainly true in my case.

  I love Jane Eyre and I adore Dracula. Spending time immersed in their worlds was enormous fun. And during this sad, grim, awful pandemic year of grief, fear, and loss, I needed something fun to take me out of myself. If you found the end result a bit bonkers, you can blame it on that, and know that regular programming will resume with my next Victorian romance novel, The Siren of Sussex, coming in 2022 from Berkley/Penguin Random House.

  As always, if you’d like more information on nineteenth century fashion,
etiquette, or any of the other subjects featured in my novels, please visit the blog portion of my author website at MimiMatthews.com.

  This novel was written entirely for my mom. She’s a huge fan of Jane Eyre and Dracula, and of every print, movie, and mini-series retelling or adaptation thereof. Last year, we began joking about a gender-flipped Jane Eyre retelling called John Eyre. Talking and laughing about all the possibilities for the story got us through many difficult times. For that reason, and many others, I owe my mom a debt of gratitude.

  I’m also grateful to my dad for his patience. During all the discussions my mom and I had about John Eyre, he never said a word (though I’m pretty sure he thought we’d both lost our minds).

  Thanks are also due to my brilliant editor, Deb Nemeth; to my cover designer, James Egan; and to Colleen Sheehan for formatting.

  Last, but not least, extra special thanks go out to my wonderful beta readers: Sarah, Rachel, Clarissa, Courtney, and Renée—authors and readers extraordinaire. Thank you for your feedback, your kindness, and for the valuable gift of your time. I promise that the next book I ask you to beta read won’t have vampires in it.

  USA Today bestselling author Mimi Matthews writes both historical nonfiction and award-winning proper Victorian romances, including Fair as a Star, a Library Journal Best Romance of 2020; Gentleman Jim, a Kirkus Best Indie Romance of 2020; and The Work of Art, winner of the 2020 HOLT Medallion. Mimi’s novels have received starred reviews in Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus, and her articles have been featured on the Victorian Web, the Journal of Victorian Culture, and in syndication at BUST Magazine. In her other life, Mimi is an attorney. She resides in California with her family, which includes a retired Andalusian dressage horse, a Sheltie, and two Siamese cats.