Mrs Rochester

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘Thank you for your advice. Since I see there is no ridding myself of you, Mr. Rivers, Jane, you and I will go upstairs.’

  He gave me a look of command and I unresistingly followed him from the room. Outside in the hall he took my arm in a firm grip and led me upstairs. I own, now, that I was apprehensive. My husband had never after our marriage behaved to me with anything other than tenderness and courtesy – but now I saw a different man, a man almost to dread. Yet I knew, in the sane part of my being, he was still Edward, whom I loved and had married, and that this fierce mood would pass as soon as I had spoken to him.

  We entered my chamber and he ordered, ‘Sit down, Jane.’ I sat on a small, low chair by the window, waiting, while he commenced to pace the room, in silence, like a caged beast, going up and down from window to door and door to window, never once glancing at me. His behaviour alarmed me. I felt here was a man not in command of his intelligence or nerves.

  In my heart I blamed Adèle for this, for had she not run away, giving, it seemed from his earlier comments, as the reason that she had been made unhappy at Thornfield – and by me, the implication must have been – Edward would not then have left the house, nor returned in his present mood.

  Nor could I put from my mind Céline Varens – again I wondered how long he had known she was in London. Had he seen her there and, more important still, for how long had he known she was not dead?

  The silence deepened. There was no sound but that of Edward’s pacing. Then, ‘Jane,’ he said abruptly, ‘Jane – have you nothing to say to me?’

  ‘What do you wish me to speak of?’ I returned in a calm voice.

  ‘You are recovered from your fall, I hope?’

  ‘Thank you, I am.’

  He walked to the window and looked out into the blackness. ‘No sign of a thaw. The journey back was perilous. I had half a mind to stop on the road, but I could not bear to be away longer, though I feared a horse would break a leg.’ He uttered an oath. ‘Come, Jane, speak to me. This silence of yours is unbearable.’

  ‘I should like to know if you blame me for Adèle’s running off.’

  ‘Blame you? Good heavens, no. She is your step-ward, only ten years younger than you. You began as her governess and now you are her guardian’s wife. A reasonable man might hope your relations would be easy, but would be a fool to expect it.’

  ‘So you believe I gave her offence, and forced her to run away from here?’ I asked.

  ‘No, Jane, no,’ he said with impatience in his tone. ‘No, I believe nothing of the kind. Does that satisfy you? Are you placated now? Will you consent now to tell me what has been going on in this house since I left only yesterday. Who is that man?’

  ‘The gentleman is my cousin, the brother of Diana and Mary. As you know he has been long away, as a missionary in India. He came this morning and, I believe, rendered me a very great service. Edward – there is much to tell and I ask you to hear me sympathetically.’

  And so I told him all – or nearly all – of my recovering from my fall to find only Madame Roland and Grace Poole in the house, of their leaving, of my attempt, thwarted by St. John’s providential arrival, to go to Mr. Todd’s to get help. But of Madame Roland’s revelations about Céline I said nothing. Then I ended by relating the story of Jeremy’s return and of what he had said concerning Ruby’s broken girths, the nail placed beneath her saddle. As I spoke, Edward’s face grew grave; pity replaced anger in his countenance; he sank to the floor beside me, took my hand and said, ‘Oh, Jane, Jane.’ When I had concluded he said in a broken voice, ‘Oh my little dear, what you have suffered.’

  But I could go on no longer without speaking of Céline and, placing my hand on his head said gently, ‘Grace Poole and Madame Roland told me Adèle had gone to London to find her mother, Céline Varens.’ I felt him stiffen at my mention of the name, and as I continued to speak I heard him breathe in sharply. ‘Edward, I knew nothing of Mademoiselle Varens’s being in London. Indeed, I believed she had died some years ago. It was disturbing to hear from those two wicked women that she was alive and in London. Edward—’ I appealed, but broke off. Then, suddenly, he rose to his feet. He looked down at me, his face rigid, his eyes like ice on mine.

  ‘Do you reproach me, by implication, with withholding information about Céline Varens? Do you imagine for one moment that I would insult my wife with news of such a woman? Would you have had me, just after the birth of Jonathan – for that was when I first heard she was not dead – come to your bedside, as you lay there with our new-born son, and hand you the letter from a friend in Paris, containing the story of her being upon the stage? It would have been unbearable news for me to tell and you to hear at such a time. No, Jane, I locked within my heart the information that Céline was alive. I bore it as a burden. As details of her increasing fame came to me, I kept that, also, from you. What would you have had me do, pollute our lives with the knowledge that that woman was still in the world to haunt us?’

  I understood, then, his motive in keeping silence. He would have seen it as incumbent on a gentleman to keep such matters from his wife, though for my part I believe I would rather have known the truth.

  Now, I said what I should not have said. ‘Edward, Céline is Adèle’s mother. You have just spoken of her as your ward but you owe it to yourself and to her to acknowledge her as your daughter, if that is who she is. Céline is living. Céline knows the truth and may tell it, and then the world will know.’

  I should not have spoken thus and I confess now that what prompted my apparently sage words was a jealous heart. At that moment I think I cared not at all for Adèle nor for her parentage – no more than for Pilot’s. I cared that Céline, who I was convinced retained her beauty, was being fêted throughout London and that I did not know whether Edward had loved her once, though I thought he had, and whether, in his heart of hearts, he loved her still. That is what I cared about. What I desired was that Edward should repudiate the woman, his former mistress, say he abominated the very thought of her and assure me he never had a child by her. What Edward desired at that moment was that his loving, patient Jane would afford him some peace and rest in the midst of his difficulties (the gravity of which, I can say, she little knew, as he had told her little). And as I received from Edward no reassurance, so did he receive no peace or consolation from me, only a challenge to say publicly what Adèle’s parentage was. There was no understanding on either side of this clash of unspoken desires and therefore the outcome could only be unhappy.

  Edward said roughly, ‘I’ve no time for canting talk from you, Jane. It must be the influence of that holy man of God, your cousin, which has overtaken you. I kept the news of Céline from you for good reasons, which I’ve had the grace to explain and for yet another, which I haven’t – which is that I knew once you learned of Céline’s continuing existence you would worry yourself perpetually that I loved her still. No acts, no reassurances of mine would have convinced you. A year – five – ten – a hundred years of love between us would have been as nothing – you would have given me no peace over my past days with Céline, nor over her present life. Do not tell me I am wrong, Jane, for I know women. Believe,’ he said again, and there was harshness in his tone, ‘I know women.’

  The injustice, his cold voice, struck me like a sudden, heavy blow. Indeed, I think, rather than hear those words, delivered in that tone, I would have preferred him to have struck me. I recall nothing after that but sinking my head on my breast and murmuring, ‘Edward, your unkindness will kill me.’

  He started, as if called suddenly to himself, but then said hotly, ‘I will say no more, but do not expect me to remain in a house where I am shown no trust or loyalty. I am exhausted, Jane. You do not know what I have to do, to bear. I can sustain these trials. I have sustained such things before and can now again, believe me. But I can do nothing in this atmosphere. Disorder has come to this house; misery, discomfort and suspicion prevail; and you, who should be – whose duty demands that you sho
uld be – my chief comfort and resource, are against me. Very well, do as you please, but I will stay in this house no longer.’ And he turned rapidly and left me.

  Then I was at the door, crying out to him, ‘Do not go, Edward. Do not go.’ But he went rapidly along the gallery and down the stairs.

  Fatally, at the foot of the stairs was St. John, who may have heard Edward’s raised voice, may have left the drawing-room to satisfy himself that all was well. Though he acted with the best of intentions, the result was unfortunate.

  In the hall, Edward stopped and confronted him. ‘Still loitering, Rivers? Well, do not allow me to disturb you – stay, make free of my house and offer as much comfort as you like to my wife. I am leaving.’ And he crossed the hall with a rapid stride, opened the great doors and went out into the frozen white waste beyond, now lit by cold moonlight.

  I ran after him, downstairs, across the hall, eager to seize him, plead with him, reason with him, make him, by any means I could, remain with me.

  In the doorway St. John caught my arm, pulling me up short. ‘Stay, Jane—’ he began, but I would not.

  I ran through the snow, round the house to the stables, the wind cutting at me like a knife, my feet slipping on the frozen surface. He could not leave me, he must not go – I was afraid for myself, also for him. There was danger for a tired and angry man who set wildly off on such a night as this. His horse might fall on the ice, more snow might come, causing him to miss his way.

  The stable-yard was patched with frozen snow. In the centre of it Edward was saddling the big grey, which he had brought back tethered behind the carriage. Further off stood Pilot, a great shape in the clear, frozen air, so sensitive to his master’s mood that he dared not approach him.

  ‘Edward!’ I cried.

  He took no notice of me but bent to fasten the girths; then he straightened up and took the bridle in his hand. ‘Go back, Jane,’ he told me. ‘I am leaving. It is better so.’

  ‘How can you say that? How can it be better to leave me?’

  The horse was ready, frozen breath clouding from its mouth. Edward mounted swiftly. His horse’s hooves clattered on the stone. He rode towards me.

  I barred his path. ‘No, Edward, Stay!’

  The grey came on. ‘Go back!’ Edward cried.

  ‘I will not.’

  ‘But you will!’

  He manoeuvred the horse round me; the beast’s huge shoulder brushed mine, jolting me. I stumbled, barely recovered and saw him pass under the stable-yard archway and turn. I was left in the yard, under a cold half-moon, listening to the sound of reteating hooves crunching the snowy gravel in front of the house. I moved mechanically from the yard and past the house. Standing at the top of the drive I watched Edward on the big horse, man and mount black against the snow, with the huge dark shape of Pilot behind, until they reached the road.

  I do not know how long I stood there. I recall St. John finding me, putting an arm round my shoulder and supporting me, unresisting, into the house. He rebuilt the drawing-room fire, he wrapped me in shawls, he sat with me all that long night as I, uncomprehending, mourned. I talked, but I do not recall what I said. Certainly I told him of Adèle’s parentage, of Céline.

  He gave me what comfort he could, which was small. ‘He is evidently under some great strain. Be patient; wait. He will think better of what he does, while he is away,’ he said.

  ‘He may go abroad,’ I grieved, ‘as he did before, when Bertha Mason was in the house.’

  ‘You are not a madwoman he is bound to against his will. He is a husband, who loves you and you – you are Jane,’ said my cousin.

  As dawn came, greyly filling the window-frames, I could not in my anguish check myself and burst out bitterly, ‘Oh St. John – if only you had not been here when he came. Your presence angered him, I know. If you had not come, I should have gone to Mr. Todd’s, followed Edward, caught him up on the London road and been reunited with him. It would not have ended like this.’

  Later, I bitterly regretted my ungenerous speech. St. John, though, made no response to my lamentations, saying merely, ‘Yes, Jane, I know. But he will return, I am sure of it.’

  Chapter XXIII

  The following account is based not on my own experiences after that day but on what Edward told me later of his movements and feelings after he left Thornfield on that awful night. Another account came from Blanche Norton – who had, of course, been in London at that time – when she visited Thornfield recently. She sat with me in the drawing-room, flushed with pleasure at her memories. She had enjoyed that period in her life, a success for her, and did not understand, I think, the discomfort given to me by her words. Her sensitivity to the feelings of others is small, and she has never been one to resist giving a wound to another, on the caprice of the moment.

  Edward has described to me his ride that night through the cold and empty landscape, the few houses he passed, farmhouses chiefly, shut up and dark. Pilot plodded after, through the snow, mile upon weary mile. When dawn came a great red sun rose over a vista of fields, frosty and snow-laden. He had come twenty-five miles, into the lowlands. Already he had been obliged to pick up Pilot, sadly spent and with bloodied paws full of ice, hoisting him awkwardly on to his horse; Edward himself continued on foot. The horse, not fresh at the start of the journey, was now ready to fall. He arrived at a small town, ordered Pilot down and the weary man, still leading his horse and with the great dog limping behind, plodded past silent houses until they came to an inn, where he woke the landlord. There Edward rested, half asleep by the fire, until day came, when he bought a carriage and pair, gave orders for his horse to be fed and rested and taken back to Thornfield, and set out once more. Further south there was no snow, only grey skies and a freezing fog. He went on through cold and mist. During this long, slow journey, he said, he was in a haze of fatigue, only penetrated agonisingly by surges of restless and torturing emotion.

  It was in this condition that he reached London early the next morning, when the busy, smoky town had been up and doing for some hours. He made his way across the city to the docks, pulled up his carriage and, travel-worn and weary, with the big dog still loping beside him, went down to a thronged wharf.

  There he visited the shipping office of Grover and Sims; then he drove to the centre of town and called at his tailor’s, shirtmaker’s and bootmaker’s. Afterwards he betook himself to Belgrave Square, where the Nortons had their town house.

  ‘He came in most affably,’ Blanche Norton told me at Thornfield. ‘He was impeccable in manner and costume, his company as charming and stimulating as ever. One would never have suspected he had such grave anxieties, although, had one known, one might have noted a certain gauntness, detected beneath his easy manner some sort of reckless despair – that mood, my dear,’ she told me sympathetically, ‘which prevailed with him during the time when the former Mrs. Rochester was still alive, before you arrived at Thornfield and turned the old Edward Rochester into the happy man he became. He stayed with us, of course – we would allow nothing else. The reason for his unexpected visit to London he gave as urgent matters of business. I asked no questions, of course, but my husband knew Edward had plunged deep into trade with the West Indies, that the Janus was at sea, bound there laden with cargo. However, this matter was not discussed between us. The only hint of trouble we had was his taciturnity on the subject of his trading ventures, about which, had we but known it, he was profoundly anxious.

  ‘He said little, too, about events at Thornfield, telling us only that your cousin, a clergyman, was staying with you, which was perfectly reassuring to us. There were no other indications on Edward’s part that there were troubles at Thornfield, or that his state of mind was anything but easy. Soon after his arrival, he sent a message to Adèle, asking her to come south to us. We were pleased, of course, to welcome her.’

  For the first few days of Edward’s visit, Blanche said, she made sure he enjoyed all the pleasures of town – the Nortons are well connec
ted and know everyone in that small circle which constitutes London society. There were visits to plays, and there were dinners and evening parties. Each morning Blanche rode out in the park with her interesting guest. It was some time since Rochester had been in London; ten years earlier the tale of a mad wife burned and of his own injuries in trying to save her had circulated. Then, less interestingly, I suppose, there had been the story of his marriage to a nobody, formerly the governess of his ward – or was she his daughter?

  Now, here was Rochester, once more perfectly garbed, perfectly mannered, maimed but not unhandsome, attractive by reason of his energy and strength. The magnetism of his personality exerted itself on any man or woman on whom he chose to bestow it. In the polite salons of London he had all the attraction of a man whose appearance in the world was impeccable, but who carried with him the fascinations of an interesting past. Though the conservative might eschew the company of Edward Fairfax Rochester of Thornfield, many of the more adventurous of the powerful London hostesses took him up, particularly when Blanche, never discreet, revealed the history of his previous liaison with the season’s favourite, Madame Céline Varens. She, the bright star in that season’s theatrical firmament, was invited everywhere. It was a fortunate hostess who could persuade her to give a recital at an evening party for the entertainment of her guests.

  And that is how they met, in Lady Jago’s red and gold music-room, a long room of mirrors and gilt chairs, with a low wooden dais at one end, where, by the light of two great, shining chandeliers, the most celebrated musicians of Europe had performed.

  On this particular evening – the evening on which Céline and Rochester were to meet for the first time after so many years – the actress stood on the dais, speaking, in her beautiful voice, the simple words of a poem. Lily-pale, with her golden hair piled on her shapely head, she was clad in a dress of red brocade, without jewellery except for the two pearls set in antique gold which dropped from her small ears. Her face was oval, her eyebrows, a little darker than her hair, arched over long, almond eyes. Her mouth was very red.