Before long we were taking the path through the Nortons’ lowland fields, where their fat cows still grazed, in spite of the lateness of the year.
Raybeck Hall was an old manor, built, I would guess, in the time of William and Mary. The windows were mullioned, the walls ivy-clad; the house looked down over a well-kept garden to a river. However, as we made our way down the drive and reached the front of the house, with its delightful prospect, enlivened even at this drab time of year by rare shrubs and trees, our attention was violently distracted, not, alas, by the charm of the house, but by another sight. Our own carriage stood outside the house, Jeremy, our coachman, beside it.
‘What in God’s name is our carriage doing here?’ Edward demanded furiously. Then he raced towards it, his horse kicking gravel up behind him. When I caught up he was shouting questions at Jeremy, who regarded him with a startled air.
‘How come you here?’ cried my husband. ‘How long have the horses been standing?’
‘Miss Adèle is inside, sir, visiting Lady Norton,’ Jeremy explained. ‘We have been here these two hours.’
‘Are you mad?’ he cried.
I intervened. ‘Edward, this is not Jeremy’s fault.’
‘Wherefore not? He had no instructions to bring the carriage out.’
Now Blanche Norton, smiling, came down the steps of the house towards us. ‘Mr. Rochester,’ she greeted him. ‘And Mrs. Rochester. How pleasant of you to call. I have had the pleasure of Adèle’s company all afternoon, but she did not tell me to expect you.’
Then Adèle appeared in her new plum-coloured dress, very lovely but with a manner betraying, I thought, a little trepidation. She came down the steps to greet us.
Edward mastered himself to a degree. ‘I am sure you have had a delightful afternoon,’ he said to Blanche, ‘but now we have come to fetch Adèle home.’
‘Do step in for a little while,’ she said.
‘No, Blanche, thank you. We will not. Adèle, will you come home?’
‘Papa,’ she began, but the look he gave her was so intimidating she ceased instantly to appeal to him and said, hastily, ‘Very well, I will collect my things.’
But he cut off her words saying, ‘A servant can bring them. You will get into the carriage, please.’
This she did. Blanche, showing no sign of confusion about this awkward scene, instructed the butler to fetch Miss Adèle’s cloak and gloves.
‘Since the carriage is here, my dear,’ Edward said, ‘We might as well enter it.’ He then ordered Jeremy to hitch our two riding horses to the back of the carriage and handed me in. Adèle, already inside, was biting her lip and tears, not of grief, I think, but of rage and shame, were in her eyes.
As Edward handed me into the carriage and I sat down, he still being outside, she said to me in a fierce undertone, ‘I am humiliated. To order me from the house and into the carriage – it is too much.’
In the same low voice I said to her, ‘Disguise your feelings, Adèle.’
As swiftly as any actress, she banished from her face the expression of chagrin and smiled brilliantly. She bent towards me and said, as if imparting something of pleasure and interest, ‘Well – I will conceal my feelings. Thank you for your worldly advice, Miss Butter-would-not-melt-in-your-mouth.’ And then she leaned from the carriage to where Edward and Blanche stood and said to her hostess, ‘I thank you so much for a pleasant afternoon. I hope London will be as gay and entertaining as you anticipate.’
‘I am sure it will be. Next time you must come with us,’ Blanche replied.
Settling back in her seat again, Adèle, still smiling charmingly, said in a low, vicious tone, ‘Next time. Next time. Why not this time? Your fault, Jane.’
I looked at her with dismay and could not reply for a moment. Then I said quietly, ‘In your view, I think, Adèle, everything is my fault.’
Edward then mounted the carriage and sat down beside me.
‘Well, I am sorry your visit was so brief,’ Blanche Norton said through the carriage window.
Edward bowed slightly and ordered Jeremy to drive on.
As soon as we started to move Adèle said pleadingly, ‘Oh, Papa – I am full of remorse. I should not have ordered the carriage without asking you. But I was so lonely and miserable when you and Step-mama went off riding and I did not understand that I might not do so. Will you forgive me? I will not do it again.’ She leaned forward and laid her hand on his knee. ‘Do say I am forgiven.’
‘Oh, very well,’ he said impatiently. ‘I cannot claim to have told you not to take the carriage. I am more angry with Jeremy than with you, for he should have known better.’
And so it seemed Adèle was to be forgiven and Jeremy blamed, which I thought unfair, for how was he to refuse the request for the carriage from the daughter of the house when he had no instructions to do otherwise? Moreover, I was certain that, while Jeremy had done no more than what he thought must be his duty, Adèle had guessed she should not have asked for the carriage but was nevertheless determined to go to the Nortons’ in order to make one last effort to induce Blanche Norton to invite her to go to London with them. However, I thought it best to hold my peace. Alas that I did, for I might have been able to prevent the consequences of Adèle’s foolish deed.
So Adèle was forgiven, her seizure of the carriage seen as a prank and, over dinner, a solemn promise was given by Edward, that she should be taken to London next spring.
‘Let us hope you will be well enough by then to come with us,’ Adèle said, in the drawing-room later, Edward having gone to his study. But her eyes as she spoke were very strange and cold. There was that in her gaze which chilled me. I believed she wished not that I should be in London with her, but the opposite – that and worse. There is no woman who, knowing her confinement lies only a few months ahead, does not sometimes fear for her own life. I do not know if this is what she meant – that I might not survive the birth of my child – but I looked into those lovely eyes and was afraid – for her as well as for myself.
‘Adèle,’ I said gently, ‘you must understand that I am married to your father, and where he goes, I go. I am sorry that because of my condition we cannot go to London now, though I must point out that for ten years we have been quite content to stay at home, not travelling, rarely visiting, happy in our own company and living in our own quiet way. However, you are young, and wish to travel and see life, and that is quite natural. But you cannot always do what you wish to do and have what you wish to have.’
She stood up angrily and made as if to leave the room. ‘No,’ I told her, ‘sit down and listen to me.’ Which command she obeyed, though her face was mutinous.
‘I will not permit you to go on like this, ever unkind, angry and perverse,’ I told her. ‘I repeat, I will not allow it. You must change – you must – or I shall be obliged to ask your father to send you away. He may not wish to do so, but, if I insist, he will, I assure you. I do not want matters to come to this pass, Adèle, but I warn you, if they do, you will have to leave here.’
During this speech she sat on, her head bowed, her eyes fixed on the carpet, an angry expression on what I could see of her face.
I was fatigued after the ride; I had rallied myself in order to make this, as I saw it, necessary statement, and now I felt exhausted. ‘Do you understand me?’ I asked but she did not reply.
I stood up, and left the room, going upstairs to bed, thinking sadly of the happiness of the day Edward and I had spent together before we reached Raybeck Hall, and how our old communion had been restored – until the day had ended badly, so very badly.
Chapter XXI
Next morning was frosty, with a threat of snow. I rose early, breakfasted alone and went out to the stables. Edward’s horse was gone and I was surprised to find Ruby out in the yard and saddled. The other horses were in their stalls, but for one which was being groomed by Jeremy’s boy, who looked at me warily. There was no sign of Jeremy.
‘I came to ask where Mr. Roch
ester had gone this morning,’ said I.
‘He left for Millcote early,’ the boy said. ‘When I came down he had saddled up and gone.’
I was surprised, for there had been no previous talk of Millcote. However, it lay only six miles off, so whatever his business Edward would return that day.
I glanced at Ruby, standing there with my saddle on her back. ‘Did he order Ruby to be saddled before he left?’ I asked.
‘She was thus when I rose this morning,’ he told me.
‘So she has been standing saddled in the yard for over an hour? How strange. Where is Jeremy?’
The lad told me, ‘I can’t say, madam. He’s most like on the road to Ferndean. He said he would go back to see his parents.’
‘Gone to Ferndean?’ I questioned.
‘Aye,’ said the lad, looking at me strangely. ‘He were that sad, though, nigh on crying, when he left. It were a pitiful sight, missus, after Mr. Rochester turned him off so roughly.’
I could scarcely believe what I heard. ‘Has Mr. Rochester dismissed Jeremy?’
‘Aye,’ he told me, as if surprised I did not know. ‘Mr. Rochester come down to the stables very late, near midnight, roused Jeremy and told him to pack up and go that very minute. He blamed him for bringing Miss Adèle in the carriage yesterday said he could trust him no longer; he must go. He would listen to no pleas or arguments – Jeremy must go. He gave him his wages and would not let him wait even till dawn.
‘He were very confused, Jeremy, but he stood up to the master, saying he and his family had worked for Mr. Rochester for more than ten years and he had done nothing but obey Miss Adèle’s wishes and that he and his family had always been true. Yet, he said if the master wanted him gone then he would depart and make no trouble. Jeremy ended by pleading with the master – but he told him again to go, most roughly, and then turned away and left. So Jeremy put his things together and he said he would go back to his mother and father.
‘And then out came Mrs. Poole, saying Mr. Rochester had roused her to come out and tell Jeremy his orders were to go and go immediately, not waiting for morning. And so he went, sad, dark and cold as it was. I hope he got home safe,’ said the lad, ‘or found somewhere warm and dry to bide till daylight came.’
I could not understand why Edward had acted thus. Jeremy, faithful, sensible and loyal had been employed by us all his grown life. I reasoned that this deed of Edward’s could be no more than a passionate act and was confident that, on his return, the smallest of intercessions from me would cause him to change his mind and take Jeremy back.
Meanwhile, I thought that, since Ruby was saddled, I would take my ride in the direction of Ferndean, for if Jeremy, as the stable-lad surmised, had spent the night in some cottage or barn on the way to Ferndean, he might still be on his way there and, he being on foot, I might catch him up, give him a little money and reassure him that as soon as his master was home I would make representations on his behalf.
I therefore dressed for riding and, mounted up, took Ruby out on to the road and set off in the direction of Ferndean. With hindsight I see how lucky it was that I took to the road in pursuit of Jeremy, not to the fields and hills, for otherwise I might have lost my life.
I was only a mile from Thornfield, with fields on either side, when Ruby began to quiver and toss her head. Suddenly she kicked her back legs up, once, twice, then again. As I struggled to keep my seat she broke into an uneven canter, her ragged gait making it almost impossible for an inexperienced and nervous rider such as I, taken by surprise, to remain in the saddle. Then she leaped forward in a wild gallop, veering from one side of the road to the other. I had no chance of keeping my seat, for I felt the saddle slipping forward as if the girths had suddenly slackened. I was pitching towards the ground. Mercifully, the lady’s saddle is one the rider can slip from easily; mercifully some instinct of self-preservation showed me, in a flash, just ahead, a grassy verge beside the road. I eased my foot from the stirrup, and threw myself sideways on to the grass.
The fall drove the breath out of me, and I lay, dazed, gasping for breath and half swooning, hearing the clatter of Ruby’s hooves as she galloped on. I could not tell if I were injured, but in my head rang the thought that the fall might have harmed my coming child.
I heard feet running and a man’s voice crying, ‘She’s here. I’ve found her!’
There were two voices; huge hands raised me up, tended me and wrapped me in a coat of rough wool. Eventually I was placed on a cart and borne slowly back to Thornfield.
I had been very fortunate. Two men who were rebuilding a dry-stone wall, uphill but not far from the road, had witnessed all and run to help me. As we approached Thornfield the threatened snow began to fall, and I am persuaded that Ruby had thrown me in open country, where there was no one to find me, I might have perished.
And so I was carried in to Thornfield and my rescuers rewarded. I was put silently to bed by Mrs. Poole. Even in my dazed state I remember remarking the strange quiet of the house. The next I knew was the doctor leaning over my bed and beyond him, through the window, I saw a curtain of thick white snowflakes softly descending, masking out the light so I could not tell what time of the day it was.
The doctor examined me and expressed delight that I was not worse hurt than I was, though I was sorely bruised. He gave it as his opinion, as I, too surely knew, that I had been more than fortunate in falling so soft and being found and helped so soon. As far as my continuing health and that of my child were concerned, he said, the next few days would tell all. He gave me a draught and said he would give instructions for a light meal to be brought to me. Then he took his leave, fearing to be caught in the snow.
I fell asleep in that noiseless world created by snow and awoke to darkness, my lamp burned out, and the bedroom fire burned almost to extinction. Outside the windows, where the curtains had not been drawn, it was black, though there were two or three inches of snow heaped on the window-ledge. It was deadly quiet. No sound came from outside, no wind, no hoot of owl or cry of fox. And inside, the house was as if deserted: the noise of a coal sliding in the grate was like a pistol-shot.
I recollected that the doctor had said he would send someone to attend me, but no one had come to put coal on the fire or draw my curtains. It was as if I were quite alone in the house. Yet surely Edward must be back from Millcote by now.
Then I stiffened. In that profound silence I heard voices downstairs. The hour was late. I felt fear. I knew I must not rise, for the doctor had warned me not to, yet how could I be there, alone, apparently abandoned, hearing strange sounds below and do nothing?
So I rose – with difficulty for the bruises from my fall were exceedingly painful – and went quietly on my bare feet across my cold room and into the corridor. There were, indeed, voices, below in the hall. Once at the top of the stairs I could hear what was being said. The first voice I heard was that of Grace Poole: ‘She must not be told. I have sent him packing again.’
Then, to my horror, the low voice of Madame Roland: ‘But what will you do about the other business?’
‘She is a fool – a fool,’ came Grace Poole’s reply, in a contemptuous hiss.
‘What is happening?’ I called, my voice seeming very weak to me.
‘My God!’ came Grace Poole’s cry. ‘Is that you, Jane Eyre?’ Standing at the head of the stairs, I saw, in the darkness below, a lamp held high by one of two black-clad figures. I began to descend.
‘Do not come down,’ called Grace Poole.
‘I will,’ I said, and slowly and tremblingly, clutching the banisters, went down, step by painful step. Then Grace Poole was at my side on the stair, assisting me. At the touch of that loathed hand I stumbled; and would have fallen, had I not gripped the banister more tightly.
‘Do not touch me,’ I ordered. And I continued my slow descent without her help.
‘You should not be up,’ she told me when I reached the bottom.
‘Perhaps I should,’ I said, ‘for I
see you have let Madame Roland into the house when you thought no one would know. Where is my husband?’
There was no reply for a moment. Then Grace Poole said, ‘He returned from Millcote, then rode off again.’
I felt wretched at hearing this. I was alone in the house, it seemed, with these two evil women, my enemies. I presumed Adèle was also there, upstairs, asleep, but what help would she give me if the need arose?
‘Where did my husband go, Mrs. Poole?’ I demanded, but ‘Ask no further questions,’ she replied and put her face close to mine – I felt those bottomless black eyes burning. ‘You are ill. You must go back to bed.’
A nightmare seemed to descend on me. My voice broke as I said, ‘Mrs. Poole, where is my husband? Tell me – is he safe? Where is he?’
There was a long and terrifying silence. Then Madame Roland said, her voice low and calm, ‘You have no choice. Tell her.’
Grace Poole then said, ‘Madam, you are cold. Go upstairs where there is a fire.’
‘I will not be commanded by you. You must tell me now – where is Mr. Rochester?’
She said, ‘After you were carried home, Miss Adèle left, without saying where she was going. Due to the anxiety about your accident we did not discover her absence until Mr. Rochester came home in the afternoon. Once it became plain she had left, of her own will, Mr. Rochester went after her to bring her back.’
‘In this snow, without rest? Do you know where she went?’ There was a further pause. I stood in the dark hall, very cold and bewildered. ‘What is the hour?’ I asked.
‘Midnight,’ said Grace Poole.
‘And why are you here, in the house, at midnight?’ I asked Madame Roland.
‘To offer help,’ she said.
‘Help? What help could you give, at this hour? You have crept in, knowing my husband is away, to conspire with Grace Poole against him – and you call that help. You must leave, both of you, now.’
Mrs Rochester Page 13
