by Cynthia Hand
Mr. Henry Woodhouse is overjoyed to announce the entanglement of his most precious and comely younger daughter, Miss Emma Woodhouse to Mr. George Knightley, the wedding to take place at the nearest available church house, immediately. The bride is both beautiful and rich, and enjoyed a brief flirtation with a Mr. Churchill that had everyone quite concerned, but in the end she saw the error of her ways and picked the right chap.
Mr. Edgar Linton, of Thrushcross Grange, would like to announce his engagement to the lovely Miss Catherine Earnshaw, the wedding to take place on the twenty-first of September, even though the lady would much rather marry a ruffian named Heathcliff. But she will forego her passion in order to secure social ambition.
Charlotte suppressed a giggle. At least she was competent—when the situation called for it—at entertaining herself. She was moving on to the next one when Mr. Blackwood reemerged, this time fully clothed. He smiled at her with a touch of nervousness. She beamed back at him.
“Can I offer you some tea?” he asked in a voice that portrayed that he was only offering because this was England and it was the polite thing to do, but he’d much prefer to get on with the interrogation.
“I’d love a cup of tea,” Mr. Mason replied with an uneasy laugh.
Charlotte sighed and dropped her gaze back to the newspaper. Where the next wedding announcement seemed to leap out at her.
“Miss Brontë?” Mr. Blackwood inquired.
“No!” she gasped.
“No tea?”
“It’s not possible!”
“Come now, tea is always possible,” he said.
“No!” She jumped to her feet and shoved the paper into his hands. “Look! Look!”
His eyes scanned down the page. “What am I supposed to be . . .”
And then he saw it.
“Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, is pleased to announce his engagement to Miss Jane Eyre, also of Thornfield Hall, the wedding to occur on the tenth of September. . . .” His voice died away. “It’s not possible.”
“Mr. Rochester?” Mr. Mason was on his feet now, too. His face had drained of color. “Mr. Rochester is getting married?”
“Oh, Jane,” Charlotte breathed.
“Mr. Rochester cannot marry,” Mr. Mason said furiously. “He can’t.”
“Why?” Mr. Blackwood asked.
He told them why. And they immediately set out for Thornfield Hall.
They were almost too late. Jane and Rochester were nearly to the “Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?” part of the wedding ceremony when Mr. Blackwood and Charlotte (and Mr. Mason, trailing a bit behind) burst into the tiny stone church.
“Stop!” Mr. Blackwood strode up the center aisle. Jane and Rochester slowly turned to look at him.
Charlotte lifted her glasses. In her elegant silk wedding gown Jane was as lovely as Charlotte had ever seen her. A simple but pretty veil covered her hair. A stunning pearl necklace gleamed at her throat. Plain girls could clean up well when the situation called for it. Charlotte smiled and waved. Nice dress, she mouthed.
Jane stared back at her blankly. It was almost as if she didn’t recognize Charlotte.
“What is the meaning of this?” asked the priest.
“The marriage cannot go on,” Mr. Blackwood said. “I declare the existence of an impediment.”
But Rochester turned away and took Jane’s hand again. “Continue,” he directed the priest.
“Yes,” murmured Jane. “Continue. We don’t know these people.”
Well, that hurt.
“But . . .” The priest obviously wanted to know what the devil was going on.
“Say man and wife,” hissed Rochester. “Man and wife!”
“Man and . . .” The priest frowned. “No.” He addressed Mr. Blackwood. “What is this impediment you speak of?”
“Mr. Rochester cannot be married today, as he is already married.”
“It doesn’t matter,” exclaimed Jane passionately. “I love him, and he loves me, and now we’ll be together forever.”
“Wait, you knew about his wife?” Charlotte gasped.
Rochester was shaking his head. “I don’t have a wife. Who says I have a wife? Everybody around here knows that I’m single. Right, darling?”
“Oh,” said Jane. “Right. I don’t know about any wife. Except me, very shortly.”
“You can’t prove anything,” said Rochester.
Mr. Blackwood took a piece of paper from his pocket. “I have a statement here.” He cleared his throat. “‘I affirm and can prove that on the twentieth of October, AD’” (A date some twenty years back—did we mention that Rochester was really old?) “‘Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta, his wife, at St. Mary’s Church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of the church—a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard Mason.’”
“Okay, so I was married . . . at one time,” admitted Rochester. “But that document doesn’t prove that the woman in question is still alive, now does it?” He turned back to the priest. “Say man and wife.”
“She was alive three weeks ago,” said Mr. Blackwood.
“How do you know?” asked the priest.
“We have a witness to the fact,” Charlotte said. “Whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert.” She turned and gestured to Mr. Mason, who’d been standing at the back of the church this entire time. “Mr. Mason, come forward please. We need to hear from you now.”
Mr. Mason was pale. Trembling. He was clearly terrified of Mr. Rochester, with good reason, too, as the want-to-be-groom looked like he was going to rush the poor man at any moment and dispatch him with his bare hands.
“Have courage, Mr. Mason,” Charlotte whispered to him. “Tell the truth.”
“Bertha is my sister,” said Mr. Mason in a small voice. “I visited Thornfield Hall not even a month ago, and I beheld her there with my own eyes. My sister—Mr. Rochester’s wife—is very much alive. She’s mad, perhaps, but who wouldn’t be mad after all he’s done to her. He’s had her locked in the attic for fifteen years!”
Everyone in the church gasped.
“I assure you, I have a very good explanation for all of this!” Rochester exclaimed, but then he gave a sudden roar and lurched toward Mr. Mason like his solution to this rather insurmountable impediment to his nuptials was to do away with the witness. Mr. Mason blanched and then promptly slumped to the floor in a dead faint. Mr. Blackwood and the clerk of the church moved to restrain Mr. Rochester.
Charlotte rushed to Jane. “Oh, Jane, I’m so sorry to be the bearer of this news. I truly am. But thank goodness we arrived here in time to stop you.”
“Stop me? Who are you?” Jane said coldly, grasping Charlotte by the shoulders. “This is your doing, isn’t it? I was supposed to be free, at last. Alive again. With the love I thought I’d lost. But now you’ve spoiled everything.”
“Well, it wasn’t all my doing,” Charlotte deferred. “Although I was the one who located Mr. Mason. It’s kind of a funny story, actually. . . .”
Then Jane’s small hands were around Charlotte’s throat, and she stopped believing it to be so funny. “Jane,” she gasped out. “If I said something to offend you, I do apologize. But surely you see that it’s better now not to marry Mr. Roch-est—”
She couldn’t get the last syllable out. She had no air. Jane was surprisingly strong for a girl of her diminutive size. And everybody in this quite crowded room was looking at Mr. Rochester, who was struggling with Mr. Blackwood, or at Mr. Mason, out cold on the floor.
“Jane,” Charlotte croaked.
Jane squeezed harder. Dark spots swam before Charlotte’s eyes. The world was fading. She gave one last desperate push at her attacker . . . and her fingers caught the pearl necklace around Jane’s slender neck. She pulled, and the necklace broke free.
Pearls tumbled down all around them. Jane’s hands dropped, and suddenly Charlotte could breathe again. Then Jane’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled unceremoniously to the floor.
TWENTY-SIX
Jane
There was a fog in front of Jane’s eyes. A dense fog that prevented her from seeing anything, or hearing anyone. Voices would speak to her, but before the sounds could coalesce into words, the fog would capture them and wrap them up in cottony nothingness, stripping them of all meaning.
The head cloud stayed for days and days, and then all at once, it was gone and Jane was flat on her back on a hard, cold surface, looking up at several faces.
Mr. Blackwood. Charlotte. Rochester. Mr. Mason? And a man in white robes holding a bible?
“Charlotte?” Jane said. “Where am I?”
“Oh, dear,” Charlotte croaked and then coughed. “Do you not remember anything?”
“No,” Jane said. “I must have hit my head. Oh, no. Did I hit my head? Is that it?”
Mr. Blackwood crouched by her. “Maybe we should help her up.”
“Maybe we should tell her what happened before she . . . stands all the way up.” Charlotte said.
After further discussion, it was decided that they would help Jane to a chair, where she should sit—definitely not stand—to hear what happened. The whole thing made Jane very nervous, but not as nervous as the very next moment when she discovered what she was wearing.
“Why am I all dressed up?” Jane asked, smoothing her hand down the softest silk she’d ever felt in her life. “I didn’t steal it.” She felt the need to clarify that fact upfront.
Rochester paced on the other side of the room defensively.
“Somebody please tell me what happened,” Jane insisted.
“Well,” Charlotte said. “To put it as succinctly as possible . . . You were possessed by a ghost, who then, using your body, agreed to marry Mr. Rochester, who, it turns out, has a secret wife locked away in the attic, and just as you were about to say your vows, we rushed in and stopped the wedding and I tore off your pearls, which seemed to be the talisman for your ghost, and then you collapsed, and . . . well . . . here we are.”
“Yes, aren’t we, though,” Rochester grumbled.
Mr. Blackwood clenched his fists. “You, sir, have no right to say anything.”
Charlotte went to his side. “We should call for the authorities.”
“And tell them what?” Rochester smirked.
“Wait,” Jane said, rubbing her forehead. “Wait.”
“I know, I know,” Charlotte said, returning to Jane. “Being possessed by a ghost cannot be a pleasant experience.”
Jane shrugged Charlotte’s hand away and stood. “Rochester’s married? You’re married?”
Rochester’s gaze darted nervously from face to face. “It’s not what you think.” His voice cracked.
“Oh, is that right? Because what I think is that you are married and you tried to get engaged to a woman who was not your wife and then had her possessed!”
“Well, I guess in that regard, it is what you think. But I can explain.”
Jane folded her arms, and then next to her, Charlotte folded her arms, and at that point, Jane noticed someone missing.
“Where’s Helen?” Jane said.
“Who’s Helen?” Rochester said.
“Here I am,” Helen said, flying into the room. “When you were possessed, and I realized even I couldn’t get through to you, I thought I would go to find help. But I didn’t know where to go, or what to do without my Jane. I decided the task was going to take a lot of thinking, so I wandered Thornfield estate, thinking. Until I saw the carriages racing here today. For the wedding.”
“I’m back now.” Jane turned to Rochester. “Explain yourself.”
“Please, please come with me.” Rochester held out his hand. Jane didn’t take it. He dropped his hand. “I will show you everything.”
“You shouldn’t go with him,” Helen said.
“I have to know.”
Jane and the rest of the wedding party followed Rochester out of the church and down the hill and back to Thornfield Hall.
They all entered the manor in a flourish. Housemaids and servants threw rice and flower petals at the couple.
“Curse your happy wishes!” Rochester growled. “There was no wedding today.”
The staff scurried away like roaches in a sudden light.
Jane and company followed Rochester up the spiral staircase to the top floor of the east wing, where Jane had gone so many nights ago when Mr. Mason was injured.
When Helen realized where they were going, she turned around.
“I’ll wait down here,” she said. “I can’t stand being in that room.”
Rochester did, indeed, lead them to that very anteroom where Mason had lain, bleeding. Inside, Grace Poole was sitting near the sofa, fabric on her lap, a needle in her hand. She put down her embroidery when everyone walked in. “How is our charge?” Rochester said.
“She’s a might touchy, sir,” Grace Poole answered.
“Please show us in,” Rochester said.
Grace frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. She’s rather snappish of late.”
Jane remembered the noises coming from beyond that door the night Mason was injured. The rattling of the knob. The moans that mingled with the wind. A shiver ran through her as she watched Grace open the door.
Rochester stepped through the threshold, followed by Jane and the rest of the party. Inside was a large bed, draped with deep red fabric. Red tapestries hung from the ceiling. One such tapestry was sticking out of an open window as if someone were going to attempt an escape, but they were too far up. In the corner, a small table stood. On top of it were two glasses. One lay on its side, liquid pooled around it.
Jane couldn’t see anyone in the room, until a strong breeze forced a gossamer drape aside, and behind it was a woman with ebony-black hair, sitting in a chair. She was thin to the point of being malnourished. There were scratches and cuts up and down her arms, and her head hung low as if she were asleep. Even so, Jane couldn’t stop looking at her. She was luminous, as if a brilliant glow came from deep within her.
“Meet my wife,” Rochester said. “I was married to her before I found out hysteria runs in her family.”
At his voice, the woman raised her head. “You are not my husband,” she said wearily. Then she noticed Mr. Mason.
“You.” She lunged for the man, but wrist restraints jerked her back. “You promised to stay away! Tu as promis!”
She repeated herself in French, Jane noted.
“Bertha, it is all right. This is your brother.” Rochester turned to Mason. “You’d better leave. You’re upsetting her. In fact, we should all leave.”
“No!” Mrs. Rochester cried. “No. This is not my husband. Please.”
“See?” Rochester gestured to her. “There is no cure for this kind of madness. She is hysterical. Now, everyone kindly leave so I can tend to my wife.”
Mrs. Rochester looked frustrated. Exhausted. Resigned.
But she didn’t look crazy.
Reader, you might have noticed there was a propensity at this time to label women as “hysterical.” The term was thrown around quite frequently, and, in the humble opinion of your narrators, far too easily. Then it became a vicious cycle. The more they protested, the “crazier” they were labeled. We are going on record here to say that we feel this treatment was completely unfair.
Mr. Blackwood took a step toward Rochester. “We will be waiting for you, sir.”
Mr. Mason, Mr. Blackwood, Charlotte, and Jane left.
“She attacked me that night,” Mr. Mason said. “I had no idea such madness had overtaken her.”
Jane took Charlotte’s hand. “I am feeling rather faint.”
“Yes, poor Jane. You have been traumatized.”
Mr. Blackwood and Mr. Mason bowed as the ladies walked out, as if pre-Victorian protocol mattered a whi
t at this point.
Charlotte walked Jane to her bedchamber. They were quiet as Charlotte helped Jane unbutton her gown and fold it carefully, and take off her veil and place it on top of the dress.
Jane put on her usual gray dress and then they both sat on the edge of her bed.
“So I was possessed?” Jane said.
Charlotte nodded. “I can’t believe he did that to you. He should be arrested.”
“There’s no way they would believe it.” Jane could hear the exhaustion in her own voice.
“Do you remember anything while you were possessed?”
Jane shook her head. “No. One minute I was talking to Mr. Rochester, and the next . . . nothing.”
“And then you find out he has a wife,” Charlotte said. She pulled her notebook out of her pocket.
“Really?” Jane said.
Charlotte blushed and set it aside.
“We must leave here at once.” Jane went to her wardrobe, took out her other dress, and began to fold. “About the wife. Mr. Rochester kept saying she was mad, but I didn’t find her to be so.” She hoisted her trunk onto the bed. “Frustrated, yes. Exhausted, yes. But mad?”
Charlotte took Jane’s stockings out of a drawer and folded them. “I agree, dear. But then, I’ve never met someone who was supposed to be mad.”
“It almost seemed . . .” Jane paused. “It almost seemed like if we loosened her restraints and sat down to tea, we could have a—”
She was interrupted by a rap at the door.
“Jane?” Rochester’s voice came through the thick oak.
Jane held a finger to her lips and met Charlotte’s eyes.
“I just want to leave,” Jane whispered. Charlotte nodded and placed the stockings in the trunk.
Helen ghosted in and noticed the packing. “Oh, good, we’re leaving.”
Three more strikes against the door.
“Jane, please. I’m sorry it all happened as it did, but I was desperate. Have you ever been so desperate, Jane? Have you ever been so hungry, you would do anything for bread? So cold, you would do anything for warmth? So tired, you would do anything for rest?”
Jane closed her eyes. She knew that feeling. She knew Charlotte knew that feeling as well. Helen’s head burst into flames.
