Mr. Rochester

by Sarah Shoemaker

  “I, sir?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, “who else is there?”

  “Is that not your responsibility, as her guardian?” she responded.

  “You are twice the guardian that I am,” I said, and I walked off. It was true; she had a way with Adèle that I could not fathom. Though Adèle spoke little English still, she chattered incessantly in French to Mrs. Fairfax, who would smile and nod and go about her business.

  A week or two later Mrs. Fairfax came to me with a notice from the Herald—a young lady, an experienced teacher, it seemed, looking for a position with a family. Mrs. Fairfax appeared content with the applicant’s qualifications, and thus I considered the matter closed. I would be coming and going and have little contact with any of the women now suddenly filling my Hall.

  * * *

  By mid-August, half the titled folk and the gentry of England are in Scotland for the grouse hunting, and when that is finished they return for the start of partridge season, then pheasants. And lastly, in November, comes the fox hunting. It is a movable party in which I had sometimes participated, the whole group residing for a time at one manor. That year, I had already missed the grouse, but I was back at Thornfield for the partridges, and decided to join.

  Lord and Lady Ingram of Ingram Park were hosting; their eldest daughter, Blanche, seemed a more interesting and complex young woman than many others in the neighborhood. She could shoot with the best of the party and she sat a horse as well as any man. She was beautiful too, and her gregarious nature perfectly masked my own disinterest in the gossip that is so common in those circles. In short, though I resisted seeing it at the time, she complemented the man I had become.

  The hunts were grand indeed, and a welcome distraction from the vexations back at Thornfield. I was able to give a good accounting of myself, though Miss Ingram frequently teased me that my mount was lacking in the steel and daring of her own. The horse was not, she insisted, acceptable for a man like me, for he sometimes hesitated at the hedgerows and shied away when other riders veered too close. What kind of man, exactly, did she think I was? I asked, laughing. She replied, with a wink, that she expected me to have charge of my steed.

  As we exchanged banter, I noticed that the other young ladies had fallen back in deference to her supposed claim on my affections. I had no intention of taking any of it too seriously, though I did find it amusing that she was a dark-haired Amazon, a veritable Greek statue of womanhood, just as Bertha and Giacinta had been. I told myself I must be destined to form attractions to such sensual women.

  The truth was, I wanted neither Miss Ingram nor any other woman in a serious way. I had lost any conviction that I would ever find a true companion, and I was certainly in no position to be courting someone so close to Thornfield. Bertha’s existence made marriage in England impossible; in fact her mere presence at Thornfield made my own happiness equally elusive. Only distance had given me the freedom I needed to keep my own mind still.

  Yet, I sometimes wondered, what was there for me anywhere—at Thornfield or abroad? I had long ago grown tired of the life I’d led in Europe, and my life in England had been constricted to such surface pleasures as hunts and parties and meaningless conversations.

  But before the hunts had ended, a letter for me arrived, sent over from Thornfield-Hall. It was from Geoffrey Osmon, writing that he was back in England for a while and would like to meet with me in January, if that was agreeable. It was by then a few years since abolition in Jamaica, and from all reports Valley View had weathered it fairly well. Many of the former slaves had stayed on, receiving payment now for their labor, and I assumed Osmon’s presence in England meant he was ready to move on. At any rate, I was pleased at the thought of seeing him again and learning how he was faring. I responded to his address in London, asking if he could meet me at Newmarket, just after the first of the year, for I had a plan in mind.

  Chapter 9

  I arrived at Newmarket three days before my meeting with Osmon. Though I would not have confessed it to her, I had been thinking in recent days of purchasing a new horse, one that met Miss Ingram’s exacting standards: big and handsome and daring. I wanted to feel that way myself, as if I could take hold of my life and make it to be as I wished, instead of the purposeless procession of days I saw stretched out ahead of me.

  It was impossible, of course, to walk through this town’s streets without thinking of my old friend Carrot. If he had still been alive, I knew, he would have reminded me, Jam, you can do anything you put your mind to. In my younger days I had not seen that as possible, and perhaps it still wasn’t, but I was at least ready to try. I could buy a stunning horse; I could live life on my own terms and not be constricted by the ugliness at Thornfield-Hall.

  I wandered onto the downs, where close to two decades before Carrot had passed his last moments, and I confess my eyes misted as I strolled around, thinking of all he had taught me in our too-short time together. In the distance, I saw a rider on a black horse, larger than any horse I had ever seen, and I stopped to watch. The rider was putting the creature through its paces while two gentlemen stood near, watching. I ambled closer, trying to guess what was going on; was it possible they were discussing the purchase of that splendid animal? Something in my breast arose; how wondrous I would look on that horse, what a figure I would cut. Foolish, I told myself in the next moment. Do I really intend to buy a horse just to impress Miss Ingram?

  “He is too big,” I heard one of the men say. “He will never win a race.”

  “There’s no such thing as too big, and he has good breeding—out of Zanzibar.”

  “He could never win the Derby. Never.”

  “Are you selling him?” The words came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  The two men turned and studied me. Then they noticed Pilot. “Get that animal out of here.”

  Pilot placidly returned the gaze.

  “Are you selling?” I asked again. “I might be interested in buying.”

  One of the men stared at me. My traveling clothes, I realized, must have made me seem like a cottager. “I daresay you couldn’t afford him,” the man said.

  “I daresay you are mistaken,” I said, rising to the challenge.

  “You haven’t even ridden him,” the gentleman said.

  “Indeed,” I said. “Bring him here and I shall.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that, but signaled the jockey, who brought the horse over. When I had mounted, I turned to the man who seemed to be the horse’s owner. “What’s his name?”

  “Mesrour,” the jockey offered, when the owner didn’t speak.

  “Mesrour,” I repeated. “From The Thousand and One Nights. How appropriate.” And with that I touched my heel to his flank and we were off, racing across the grassy down, and I knew I had to have him.

  “What do you think, fellow?” I asked Pilot when Mesrour and I returned. “Shall I buy him?”

  Pilot ambled over and sniffed at the horse’s fetlocks, then nuzzled my leg.

  “Yes, I agree,” I said, dismounting. “Five hundred guineas,” I said to the owner.

  He glanced at his companion. “I could make that up in one season.”

  “Not likely,” I said, “unless he wins the Derby.”

  “Who are you?” the owner asked.

  “Edward Fairfax Rochester. Of Thornfield-Hall in Yorkshire,” I replied.

  “Yorkshire!”

  “Why not?” I asked, knowing full well what the rest of England thought of the North Country.

  “Would you race him?” he asked.

  “Not for money. I would ride him across the moors.”

  “Foxhunting? He will never be a jumper.”

  I laughed. “Nor will I, I imagine.”

  The owner came forward and took Mesrour’s bridle from me, and my heart fell. “Seven hundred and fifty,” he said.

  I walked around Mesrour, feeling his legs, sensing the power in them and in his hindquarters, looking into his mouth. �
��His age?” I asked.

  “Two years.”

  “He’s massive for that,” I said, and then added, “A bird in the hand—”

  He said nothing.

  “Six hundred,” I said.

  The owner looked at me seriously for the first time. “I will see your money,” he said at last.

  “Of course,” I responded.

  The deal was done by noon the next day. Mesrour, the most magnificent horse I have still ever seen, was mine. Foolish purchase, perhaps, but I seldom give in to frivolity, and this was a horse I had to have. Mounted on him, with Pilot trotting along beside us, I felt a new man. Suddenly all things were possible once more.

  * * *

  It had been ten years since Osmon and I had seen each other, and we had both aged, I probably more than he. Yet even so, we greeted each other as brothers when we met at the inn. I insisted on taking him first thing to admire Mesrour at the stable where I was keeping him. Osmon knew horses better than I, and I was pleased that he thought I’d made a good purchase, though he asked me what I intended to do with such an animal.

  “Ride him!” I replied, and he laughed.

  Back at the inn, mugs of rum before us, Osmon reported in great detail about Valley View, lamenting that now that laborers must be paid some kind of wage, the estate was not nearly as profitable as it once had been, though he was making do as best he could. As I had suspected, however, he had grown restless with his position and was ready to move on, but there was the difficult issue of what to do with Valley View. Because it was entailed, it could not simply be sold.

  As we talked over possible solutions and the difficulties of the Mason inheritance, Osmon suddenly paused in our conversation and gazed into his mug. I wondered, too late, if he had arranged this meeting with something else on his mind. “Osmon?” I prompted.

  “A young man came,” he said. “From America.” His eyes flicked up to mine and then dropped again to his mug, until, with what seemed like a force of will, they rose again to meet mine. “He says he is your wife’s son.”

  My hand froze with my upraised mug—for a moment, it seemed, nothing, and no one, moved. So there was a child. And the boy had lived. The shock of Molly’s story, the horror of Bertha’s madness, the rage and frustration of that fruitless search years earlier—all of it rushed back at me in a moment, and I felt the room spin. “From America?” I asked.

  “South Carolina, I believe.”

  “He has a name, I presume.”

  “He calls himself Gerald Rochester.”

  A fresh wave of emotion hit me. He shared my name—or had taken it—born of my wife, and yet I was not the father. Who, then? Another suitor of Bertha’s? No, she had been too young, still a child herself, Molly had said. A slave? Unthinkable. Some criminal act, kept secret from the neighborhood? But no, the child would then have had no cause to use the Rochester name. Surely, it had not been my own father. No, but perhaps Rowland: the unwelcome product of Bertha’s childhood crush on my brother?

  And further, how did the infant get to America? Who had raised him there and what did they know of his parentage? What did he know, beyond the name of his mother? Would he find me at Thornfield? I stared across the table at my old friend, my mind stuck in a jumble of thoughts. Osmon’s sympathetic eyes were on me. “How old is he?” I asked him. “What does he look like?”

  He toyed with his mug before responding. “In his late twenties, I suppose; tall, slim, good-looking, I imagine one would say. Dark—but not as dark as you. Curly hair. He has a kind of arrogance about him. To be frank with you, I didn’t care for him.”

  Rowland, I thought. Rowland and Bertha. God have mercy, this is Rowland’s bastard son. Unless… “Where is he now?”

  “I sent him to your solicitor—and the late Mr. Mason’s—in Spanish Town: Mr. Foster. I would not be surprised to see him turn up here in England. He seemed a determined young man.”

  “I don’t suppose he has proof of a marriage.”

  Osmon gave a quick shake of his head. “Not that I saw.”

  If he had it, I knew, he would be Rowland’s heir—and Bertha’s. He would inherit Thornfield and half of Valley View. If he didn’t, he would have no claim to anything. He would be legal son of no one, heir of no one.

  If Molly were to be believed, it was unlikely there had been a marriage, else the infant would not have been sent away. No, it was clear that pains had been taken to hide Bertha’s pregnancy—because she had given birth to a bastard? I allowed myself to be satisfied that that was the whole of it. It did not yet occur to me that there was more.

  Osmon had no additional information to offer, and seeing my distress he kindly tried to steer the conversation in other directions. After a few more rounds of rum, we relaxed once more and talked late into the night. He had married a widow who had brought a little property into the marriage, as well as two children; he had an exporting firm in Kingston in mind and was hoping to accumulate enough savings to purchase it. He asked, gently, after Bertha, and, grateful for his openness in this difficult situation, I told him as much of the truth as I had told anyone, and he nodded and laid a consoling hand on my arm. I praised him for the way he had handled my affairs all those years, and I asked how much more he needed to purchase the exporting firm. With great hesitation he told me a sum that must have seemed huge to him but seemed quite reasonable to me, and in return I shared with him an idea that had been forming in my mind as we spoke. While Valley View could not be sold, it could be rented. “Rent the land to whomever you trust to be good stewards,” I told him. “I will pay you to oversee the arrangements and to be my land agent. In exchange, I will lend you enough to buy your new business, and instead of paying you a salary, I will put it to your account.” Neither he nor I mentioned that such a business deal could be voided by Gerald Rochester’s proof of legal birth.

  In addition, Osmon told me he still saw Whitledge from time to time, and that Whitledge had sent his greetings and that he now had a daughter and three handsome sons. I envied that: those two married, with wives and families, with children. I looked down at Pilot, curled at my feet, and reached down to pat him.

  Although it had grown quite late, when we parted I walked for some time afterwards, Pilot at my heel. I was pleased that Osmon seemed to have done so well for himself, and was glad to have played a part in that. On the other hand, what was my life? I had just purchased a stunning horse, and I should have been in good spirits. I had all the trappings: ownership of Thornfield-Hall, the interest of the beautiful Miss Ingram, freedom to travel when I wanted or stay home when I chose. Yet still, my life seemed empty, except for the burden of Bertha. And Adèle. And now, for the question of Gerald Rochester.

  Chapter 10

  It was January and bitter cold. Most of the gentry—the Ingrams and the others—would be in Bath by now, if not farther afield in Europe somewhere, and eager as I was to show off Mesrour, I had no mind to join them. It had been months since I had been in residence at Thornfield, and despite the burdens I had there, I felt it was time to make an appearance, to assure myself that Bertha was still in good care and that Adèle was in good hands as well, that her new governess was not ruining her. And, perhaps most important, I needed to assure myself that this so-called Gerald Rochester had not somehow materialized at my home in my absence. Osmon’s revelation had bothered me, I realized, much more than I cared to admit.

  The journey to Yorkshire took almost two weeks, for there was snow on the roadway and, despite my hurry, I had no intention of ruining Mesrour in the first days that I owned him. Yet, as we neared Thornfield, coming down the causeway from Millcote in the late afternoon, I was deep in my own head, where my emotions were at war with themselves. Even as I dreaded what I might find at the Hall—Bertha’s further disintegration or the presence of this mysterious, unwanted stranger—nonetheless I still felt that old familiar longing to see the distant outlines of Thornfield-Hall against the darkening sky, to be home again. In my distraction, I was n
ot paying the attention I should have to Mesrour’s footing, to the telltale slips of the hoof that foretell disaster. We came around a curve in the pathway, where moisture from a recent rain had frozen into a thin sheet of ice. Suddenly, Mesrour’s hooves lost their purchase, and before I could react, we were both of us falling onto the frozen causeway with the kind of crash that shatters bones.

  I was dazed for a moment, as was the horse, but when I came to myself I discovered I was entangled with him, and he groaned as if he were near death, a sound that frightened the deuce out of me. I struggled mightily to remove myself from my entanglement, swearing to myself as if it would help the effort, as Pilot snuffled around us both. I thought I heard a voice and peered about into the gloom, but seeing no one, I was put in mind of childhood tales of woodland sprites haunting this vicinity. Then the voice came again, more clearly: “Can I do anything?”

  I looked toward the sound and saw a little thing, barely half my size: not a sprite after all, but a child. I ordered it to one side, afraid it might get hurt, and managed to scramble to my feet, a sudden pain flashing through my ankle. As I helped Mesrour stand and checked him for injuries, Pilot leaped and barked around us in either joy or concern. I had just limped my way to a convenient nearby stile when I was surprised to hear the voice again, for I had forgotten that I was not alone on the path.

  “If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch someone, either from Thornfield-Hall or from Hay.”

  “Thank you,” I said, without glancing up, feeling instead at my twisted ankle. “I shall do: I have no broken bones—only a sprain.” Hoping to prove those words, I stood again and immediately felt a fiercer stab of pain in my ankle.