Mr. Rochester

by Sarah Shoemaker

  But I was on my own. I was on my own—except for Jane. It was Jane who grounded me, Jane who knew me to my very soul. It was Jane whom I could never give up—not my life as a landed gentleman, not the Ingrams, not Bertha, not even my ancestral home. If I had to choose, I would let nothing, not even…not even Thornfield itself stand in the way.

  Chapter 18

  I left for Millcote without even breakfasting, At Gerald’s inn, I pounded on his door until, half-dressed, he opened it. I imagine we both were surprised at this first meeting: I at the way he, even dark haired, resembled my brother, and he, perhaps not even knowing who I was, surely startled at my slightly mad appearance.

  “You call yourself ‘Rochester,’” I said, the accusation clear.

  “It is my name: Gerald Rochester. And you, I assume, are my uncle.”

  I would not acknowledge that. “Why have you come?”

  “To see my mother, why else?” It dawned on me that I did not know if he was aware that his mother was my wife.

  “Why else?” I repeated. “One does not go to a solicitor if one is merely trying to establish a familial connection.”

  He looked me straight in the eye. “But we are connected, are we not?” In a sudden motion, he stepped back from the doorway, saying, “Why don’t you come in?”

  I advise you not to speak with him except in my presence. I hesitated just a moment, and then, Everson’s advice be damned, I stepped into the room, and he motioned me to the only chair, while he sat on the unmade bed. “Do you know where your mother is?” I asked.

  “I know that she is in your protection. Does she live at Thornfield-Hall, perhaps?”

  I steeled myself. “Do you know what state she is in?”

  “What do you mean by that? I presume she is treated well.”

  “Your mother is mad. Insane. She does not take visitors. She would not recognize you; she would not know you; you might very well not want to see her in her condition.”

  “I would want to see my mother in any condition.”

  I had already opened my mouth in riposte, but this stopped me. See my mother in any condition. Could I fault him for that? “Have you met her brother?” I asked.

  “I was at Valley View,” he said, “but my uncle Mason was not there. He lives in Madeira, I was told. In Madeira they said he had come here.”

  “Indeed, he was here, and visited your mother and she attacked him for his trouble and nearly killed him.”

  He did not react to that revelation. Instead, there was steel in his eyes as he said, “And my father: your brother?”

  Could he possibly know how much he resembled Rowland? But of course he could, for those who had taken him to America must surely have known Rowland in Jamaica. Still: “I have no reason to think my brother was your father,” I said.

  “You have only to look at me,” he responded, leaning close, his face nearly in mine.

  “My brother is dead, these many years ago.”

  “And I have come to claim my inheritance as his son.”

  And now he comes to it. “Son or no son, the inheritance is not yours, unless you have proof of a marriage,” I countered.

  “I do have proof.”

  That stopped me for a moment. What kind of proof could he have? “Show me.”

  “First, let me see my mother. I have a right to see her.”

  I could not deny that. I did not want to allow it, but it hardly seemed decent to deny a man his mother. But I did not need to tell him that yet. “You have no right to see anyone you claim as a mother but cannot prove; you do not resemble her. You do not carry her surname.”

  “I carry her husband’s name: her husband, Rowland, your brother.”

  “And yet you show no proof. If you expect to see her, much less to claim an inheritance, you will show proof of legal marriage first.”

  “If you are looking for legal proof, the parish records were destroyed in the hurricane of October 1818; but I have a letter—two, in fact—from your father, Mr. George Howell Rochester, to my grandfather, Mr. Jonas Mason, referring to the marriage of his son to my mother.”

  I stifled a gasp. So the proof did exist—Rowland and Bertha had wed after all. Unless— “His son? Which son?” I demanded, before realizing I should not play my hand, if Gerald did not know about my own marriage. Then I tried covering my mistake: “You have the letters with you?”

  “My solicitor has them—for safekeeping.”

  “In that case, tell your solicitor to arrange a meeting at my solicitor’s. We will settle this thing there.”

  * * *

  As soon as I could, I went to Everson, telling him what had happened, and sitting through his disgust that I had gone against his orders. But when he had finished scolding me, he admitted an interest in Gerald’s supposed proof. “It is not a copy of the record,” I pointed out, “only letters, because the record was destroyed.” His eyebrows rose at that, but he said, “It’s not usual, but letters might do. It is possible. Let us see them and do our best to determine if they are genuine. When I hear from his solicitor, I will inform you.”

  I turned to leave, but he stopped me at the door. “Surely you have thought this through. If he had proof of marriage between his father and your wife, he inherits all that had been your brother’s.”

  “I know that full well,” I said. Everson said nothing in response to that. It occurred to me that he might be surprised that I would be willing to trade Thornfield to secure the hand of Blanche Ingram; he seemed on the verge of advising me against such a colossal mistake. I could not help but smile to myself, a little, as I took my leave.

  * * *

  Three days later the four of us met in Everson’s office, Gerald looking nervous and I feeling nervous. This meeting would seal my fate one way or the other; it was only with determination that I could hold my thoughts together.

  Gerald’s solicitor was a large man with rumpled clothing and a full shock of black hair, appearing more like a cottager than a solicitor, but Everson had warned me that he had a sharp mind. The two of them—Gerald and Mr. Ramsdell—arrived exactly on the dot of ten, and Everson got right to the point: “I understand you have letters proving Rowland Rochester’s marriage to Bertha Antoinetta Mason,” he said.

  “We do,” Mr. Ramsdell replied.

  “Let us see them.”

  Ramsdell withdrew from a portfolio two letters, carefully unfolded them, and placed them on Everson’s desk. I could not restrain myself from moving closer that I might see them as well.

  The first, dated 18 June 1809, read:

  My dear Jonas,

  I am pleased to write to you that of course I maintain my intention to conclude the arrangements I made with you for the benefit of both our families, especially your daughter, Bertha Antoinetta. My son is already on his way to Jamaica and will soon arrive, and by God’s will this business will be finished shortly.

  I trust that all is well with you and your family.

  Yours faithfully,

  George Howell Rochester, Esq.

  And the second, dated 12 February 1810:

  My dear Jonas,

  I have now received a letter from my son, reporting that the wedding has taken place, and the two of them have made a home for themselves at Valley View. I cannot tell you of the pleasure I feel that this marriage has been achieved as we hoped and planned, and I feel now that I have upheld my end of the arrangement.

  Yours faithfully,

  George Howell Rochester

  They were short letters—shorter than I would have expected—but clearly the two of them indicated a marriage between my father’s son (and by the dates, it could only have been Rowland) and Jonas Mason’s only daughter.

  I turned to Everson, and he was already staring at me. “What do you think?” he asked. “Might they be genuine?”

  I pulled out three letters that I possessed in my father’s own hand and laid them down beside the others. There was no doubt of it: the same kind of vellum my father alway
s used, and the handwriting an exact match.

  “It seems so,” I said, hardly able to believe it. Why had no one objected to my marriage at the time, if Bertha and Rowland were already wed? Why would Jonas and my father have both blessed it—indeed, encouraged it?

  “So you consider this proof?” Gerald asked.

  “That’s for the court to decide,” Everson responded, “but…”

  “But?” I asked.

  “One never knows,” he said.

  I felt suddenly cold, unable to fully comprehend what had just passed. Everson nodded and began refolding the letters, and Ramsdell reached for them, but suddenly I stopped them both. “Wait,” I said. “Let me see them once more.”

  The letters were laid out again on Everson’s desk and I examined them more carefully. Suddenly, I, who had been a copier of letters in my childhood, realized two things simultaneously: one, that these letters of Gerald’s were falsified. My father’s letters never included the full date, and the dates here were in a subtly different pen, a different hand. Gerald, or someone looking out for his interests, must have added the dates to make these letters a clearer proof.

  But my attention was drawn even more strikingly to the second realization: the promises referred to between my father and Jonas. If the dates had been falsified—and I now was convinced that they had been—then there could be only one meaning to the words: there had been an agreement between Jonas and my father, a long-term arrangement that played out only when I arrived in Jamaica, one that culminated in my blind marriage to the young woman with whom my brother had, earlier, fathered a bastard child.

  My arrival in Jamaica had apparently been planned as an arrangement to clean up my brother’s indiscretion, my own life a payment into the account of my brother’s irresponsibility. God, my whole life…?

  I could not comprehend it, but there was no other explanation I could see. All I had believed, all I had understood, about my father and his care of my future: it was all lies; he was protecting Rowland, and I was the coin he chose to spend. And Jonas Mason as well, who had in his last years been like a father to me—he had taken me as payment for my brother’s sins. At least…at least Jonas had had a reason: love for his own child. And my father? My father’s reason? I could barely even think it: to uphold his business dealings, whatever they might have been with Jonas, while at the same time saving Rowland from marrying a girl with Bertha’s inheritance. To save his holdings and Rowland at my expense. My whole life, for that.

  I gazed around at the others, and they were all staring at me, wondering what I was seeing. It was clear that I was the only one to have noticed the fraud, and the fate of my life—and of Thornfield—lay in my hands. I could speak and save my claim to Thornfield, hold on to the Rochester heritage that had once been Rowland’s but had now become mine—or I could stay silent, let my father’s lands go to this Jamaican bastard, and be free to claim Jane as my own.

  I could have wept. I could have bellowed. Instead I swallowed and spoke. “Yes, all right. This is finished.”

  “You’re certain?” Everson asked, frowning somewhat, for he could see that there was more going on in my head.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we are done here,” Ramsdell said, gathering up the letters. “Good day, gentlemen.”

  “I will see my mother now,” Gerald said.

  But I was in no hurry to give his mother to him. “I will contact you when it will be convenient,” I said.

  “Today.”

  “No, not today.”

  He insisted, but I stood my ground, he becoming angry, far angrier in fact than the circumstances would bear, but Mr. Ramsdell reached out and touched his arm and quieted him. “Within three days,” Ramsdell said to me.

  “Within three days,” I agreed.

  Gerald nodded at Everson and led the way out the door.

  “Rochester,” Everson asked me when they had left, “are you really satisfied? Have you no quibbles at all with this?”

  “I have not. It seems clear to me; there was a marriage. There is no point in dragging this out.”

  “But you will lose everything—Thornfield-Hall, your other properties, your income, everything.”

  “I will lose them indeed.” But I will keep Jane. “How long will it take to receive an annulment?”

  He sighed. “Four weeks, I would assume.”

  “Four weeks,” I repeated.

  Chapter 19

  Gerald came to see Bertha two days later. I had ensured Jane’s absence from Thornfield by suggesting she take Adèle on a trip for the day in the pony cart. It was a mistake on my part, in retrospect, to let him come, but at the time I was trying to do the right thing. I reminded myself that it was not Gerald who was to blame for what my father and brother had done to me, and I warned him again of her condition, but he seemed incapable of understanding.

  He left his mount in the stable yard and followed me through the side entrance door and all the way up to the curtained door to Bertha’s chambers. “She’s like to be sleeping,” I warned him. “She is more somnolent in the daytime, more violent and unpredictable at night. She will not know who you are, even if you tell her, but she dislikes strangers. Take care, she may, even in daytime, try to attack you.”

  He nodded carelessly, as if to say he was no stranger. I imagine he thought he could beguile Bertha into recognizing him.

  I unlocked the door and led him into the outer chamber. Grace Poole was startled, for I rarely came at this time of day, and she made a quick move to hide the mug at her side. “Grace”—I nodded to her—“my companion has come to visit Bertha.”

  At the door to the inner chamber I stood for a moment on the threshold, Gerald looking over my shoulder. Bertha lay asleep, her hair matted and awry, but her face as calm as it ever was. I could still see how I had once thought her beautiful.

  I stepped to the edge of the bed, but Gerald immediately knelt at the bedside and put a hand on her arm. I marveled at his lack of hesitation; it occurred to me he might be playing out a scene he had imagined countless times in his head over the years. At his touch, Bertha stirred, then fell back into sleep. “Mother,” Gerald said softly.

  Her eyelids fluttered. “Mother, I’m your son,” Gerald said, trying to coax her awake.

  “’Ware,” Grace warned, her voice swelling from the doorway behind us.

  Suddenly Bertha opened her eyes, seeing me first, frowning as if unable to decide if she knew me. Then her eyes swept to Gerald, and she flinched sharply at the unfamiliar face, batting his hand away from her arm.

  “Mother, it’s me,” he said more forcefully.

  “Took my baby, where’s my baby, where’s my baby, where’s my baby,” she muttered almost incoherently. Should I have warned him that she would not understand? Yes, undoubtedly. But I did not. I was curious as to how this would play out.

  “I am he,” Gerald insisted, his eyes searching his mother’s face, which was growing more feral by the minute. “I am your son and I have—”

  His words were swallowed by her scream. Again he persisted, his voice rising to match hers, as if her understanding were only a matter of hearing him. “I am here, Mother. I have finally found you!”

  “Gaaaa, gaaaa!” She let out a wail that could be heard throughout the house, and she clawed at him as he stood, frozen in horror. It was only Grace’s quick reflexes that saved him. She leaped across the room and pulled a snarling and growling Bertha away.

  “Gerald,” I said, “come.”

  “No,” he said. He now stood halfway across the room, unwilling to approach his mother but unwilling, too, to leave her. But her cries were growing louder now, and I knew Grace would not be able to contain her forever. I took him by the shoulders and pushed him from the room and down the stairs, slamming the door behind me.

  By the time we reached the gallery, he was furious and in tears. “What have you done to her?” he demanded.

  “I told you. She is mad, and she cannot be cured. Her own
mother was the same.”

  But he would hear none of it. “You have done this to her! She was the most beautiful girl in Jamaica…” His eyes blazed dark fury, and he swung at me, his fist barely missing my jaw and landing on my shoulder instead.

  I tried to guide him toward the stairs, but he swung again and this time hit his mark, and then came another blow, and by the third I was swinging back, and we tumbled to the floor, two grown men fighting and tussling like common ruffians.

  I was less skilled, perhaps, but stronger, and I rose from him, straightening my clothes, but he stayed at my feet, staring furiously at me. “What have you done to her?” he demanded again, his voice steely.

  I shook my head and walked away, for there was nothing I could say in response to that. I waited at the top of the staircase for him to regain his mind. But when he did, all he could do was stomp past me and down the stairs and glower back in at me from the door in that dark fury, before he dusted off his hat and left.

  What had we been thinking, two gentlemen brawling like villians? Or was that how things were done in America? It seemed an eternity to wait for the proof to go through the courts; but, I reminded myself, in four short weeks, I would be free of Bertha and her whole accursed clan forever.

  * * *

  That very evening I was reading in the library, waiting for Jane to join me after putting Adèle to bed, when I happened to catch a movement from out of the window. I raised my head, and there Jane was, walking toward the orchard. It had become a favorite place for her, as it had always been for me, and I stood at the casement and watched her small figure disappearing into the beech avenue on the other side of the gate.

  I followed. She was not in sight, and her soft step was impossible to detect among the evening birdsong and the wind rustling in the beeches. But she was there in the garden still, I knew, for though I could not see or hear her, I felt her presence. As I wandered, I popped a cherry from an espaliered tree into my mouth, tasting its refreshing sweetness; I bent closely to a rose to smell its fragrance. Oh, how I would miss this garden! It was strange to think of it as Rowland’s before me, and Gerald’s after. But such is the life of an object; it is the human connections that are irreplaceable, and I had come, tonight, to claim mine.