Jane Slayre

by Sherri Browning Erwin

  "Aunt. Who calls me aunt? Why, you are like Jane Slayre!"

  "I am." I explained how Bessie had sent for me.

  "Is the nurse here? Or is there no one in the room but you?"

  I assured her we were alone.

  "Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child."

  "It is forgiven, Aunt. I have been quite happy with the life I have made."

  "The other--" She stopped. She made an effort to alter her position, but failed. Her face changed. "Go to my dressing case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there."

  I obeyed her directions and read the letter.

  It was short and contained an inquiry into my health and whereabouts. The writer, my father's brother, desired to take over as my guardian with the purpose of not only overseeing my care and education, but to train me in the ways of the family, the Slayre ways passed from generation to generation. As he was unmarried and had no heirs, he was eager to adopt me and bequeath his fortune to me upon his death. It was signed, John Slayre, Madeira, and dated three years back.

  "Why did I never hear of this?" I asked.

  "Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly denied ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I told him you were dead. I could not abide your family vocation at the time. Slayers? The world did not need more of such cruelty in the name of justice. Justice? Bah! And I could not bear to think of you becoming one of them. I remembered the time, Jane, that you showed me the stake you had carved, all on your own, with no formal training or instruction. It is as your uncle always said: slaying is in your blood. It would be your destiny one way or another. And now I see the mercy in what you do, in what your uncle has done. I understand now that there is grace in it. There is beauty. There is goodness. I pray you, please, show me mercy."

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  "Mercy, Aunt? But I have forgiven you."

  "Ah, no, dear. No, no. I am asking--nay, begging--you to do for me what your uncle did for my husband, your uncle Reed."

  "What?"

  "A stake! A stake through the heart. I cannot bear more than I have borne, Jane. I cannot live with so much death, so much blood and loss, on my conscience. My children have grown away from me. My John is--" She began to bawl. "Oh, my dear John. I am remorseful, Jane. I repent and I am ready to die. I wish to go to heaven, or to see if I can try. Do you believe I can get there, Jane? That God will make a place for me?"

  I remembered my uncle's ghostly words. He had told me that only in death, following true repentance, could a vampyre be reunited with its soul to find the way to heaven. I could end my aunt's earthly torture. I had come armed with stakes and would not have been caught around Gateshead without several. I had one up my sleeve and two in my pocket even now.

  But to do as she asked? She was my family, after all, as much as I had denied her in the past. "I don't know, Aunt Reed. Are you sure you are repentant?"

  "I am." She shook her head and cried. "You'll never know the pain I suffer for my actions. How I blame myself for taking innocent lives, and for allowing my John to run astray, for cheating you of your uncle Slayre."

  She seemed so earnest, so desperate. I felt it my duty to oblige.

  "I suppose we should say a little prayer?" I offered.

  "Pray for me once I am gone. The nurse could be back any minute. My daughters might come in and try to stop you. I don't want you to be stopped, Jane. I have written letters, in that same drawer where you got that one, to each of my daughters to explain. Now, I am ready. Send me on my journey, Jane, as only you can do."

  She closed her eyes and stretched out, quite like a corpse, just awaiting my blow. I slid the stake out of my sleeve and studied her for some seconds. It was a mercy, she said. The same mercy my

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  uncle Reed had begged of my father's brother, John, to spare him, to take his body and return his soul.

  "God help me," I whispered as I held the stake in two hands, raised it over my head, and drove it home straight through Aunt Reed.

  Though I had slain enough vampyres to know what to expect, I somehow thought she would cry, whimper, or at least jump from the shock. To change her mind at the last second and blame me for taking her life. To sit up, eyes gaping, and say, "What have you done, you evil child!" But she said nothing. She was simply gone, from body to dust. Aside from the top of her night rail sticking out, I couldn't even tell where she had been under the blankets. How would I explain it?

  The letters, I remembered. I would bring the letters to Eliza and Georgiana and simply hope that they would understand. Be at God's peace, I bid my aunt before I left the room.

  I almost wished Abbot had been around after all these years. Nothing like a little zombie beheading to take the edge off staking one's aunt.

  CHAPTER 26

  A MONTH ELAPSED BEFORE I quitted Gateshead. How I missed Thornfield, my home! Absence had not helped remove Mr. Rochester from my heart, but had only driven him deeper into it. I thought of him constantly. Had he married Miss Ingram? No, it had only been a month. But I was sure the wedding was imminent. My days with Mr. Rochester were numbered as it was, and I was missing out on them the longer I stayed.

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  We closed Aunt Reed's dust up in her coffin and buried her in the family plot next to Mr. Reed, John, and their numerous victims, with a small service and few tears. Bessie Leaven was the only one to cry, and I believe it was more for memories of times past than for Mrs. Reed. Mrs. Reed's perfectly human brother Mr. Gibson had come from London to settle the estate's affairs, and he took Georgiana back to London with him. I wasn't sure he knew what he was getting into, but it was no longer my concern.

  Eliza requested me to stay another week to help look after the house, see to callers, and answer notes of condolence while she prepared for her journey to Italy.

  "Good-bye, Cousin Jane Slayre," she said when we parted. "I wish you well. You have some sense."

  How other people felt when they were returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know. My journey seemed tedious, fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn, and fifty miles the next day. I was glad, at least, to see the sun again. I mused that seeing Mr. Rochester would eclipse even my joy at feeling the warmth of daytime sunshine on my face.

  I was going back to Thornfield, but how long was I to stay there? Just before I left to return, I had a letter from Mrs. Fairfax. She reported that the party at the hall was dispersed. Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return soon. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage. She expected the event would take place soon.

  The question followed, where was I to go? I dreamt of staking Aunt Reed. How much easier it was than I had imagined, how I had given her the peace she craved. Perhaps I should try to find my family. I had a name at last, John Slayre, Madeira. I didn't like the idea of travelling to Madeira on my own, but I would enjoy learning more of my parents and of my supposedly inherited skills at slaying. Was it possible I was denying my natural talents? Could I not

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  provide a valuable service in restoring souls to those who had lost their way? Or in stopping fiends from turning more to their kind?

  I wasn't sure I had it in me. All I wanted, in my dreams, was to live at Mr. Rochester's side, as man and wife. But I did not live in my dreams, and the real world was pointing me in a new direction, if only I knew what it was.

  I had not notified Mrs. Fairfax of the exact day of my return for I did not wish a carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself. Upon arrival at Millcote, I left my box in the hostler's care to be delivered to Thornfield Hall later. I slipped away from the George Inn about six o'clock of a June evening and took the old road to Thornfield, a road that lay chiefly through fields and was now little frequented.

  It was no
t a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft. The haymakers were at work all along the road.

  "Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," I said to myself as I walked along. "And little Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you. But you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."

  But sense would not stop me from dreaming and urging me on my way. "Hasten! Be with him while you may. But a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him forever!"

  I began to run.

  When I reached the fields near Thornfield, the labourers were just quitting their work and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders. I had but a field or two to traverse, then I would cross the road and reach the gates. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path. I saw the narrow stile with stone steps. And there--was I dreaming?--I saw Mr. Rochester sitting, a book and a pencil in his hand. He was writing.

  For a moment I was beyond my own mastery. I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him or lose my voice or the power of motion. I thought to turn around, take the other way to

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  the house, to avoid making a fool of myself. It would not do to cry and lose my faculties upon greeting him.

  Too late. He saw me. He looked up, started as if seeing a ghost, and then began to wave.

  "Hallo!" he cried. He put up his book and his pencil. "There you are! Come on!"

  I kept going, somehow, though I don't know in what fashion. I lost awareness of my movements, my actions.

  "And this is Jane Slayre?" he said as I neared. "Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes, just one of your tricks not to send for a carriage and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, to steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a fairy. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?"

  "I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."

  "A true Janian reply! Good angels, be my guard! She comes from the other world--from the abode of people who are dead, she tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf. Truant! Absent from me a month, and forgetting me, I'll be sworn!"

  My heart raced and my breath came faster. He had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would that it were my home!

  He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired if he had not been to London.

  "Yes. I suppose you found that out by second sight."

  "Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."

  "And did she inform you what I went to do?"

  "Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."

  "You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly, and whether she won't look like a queen leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, my fairy, can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"

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  "It would be past the power of magic, sir," I said, delighted at teasing him again, then added, "A loving eye is all the charm needed. To such you are handsome enough, or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."

  Mr. Rochester smiled at me, outshining the warmth of the summer sun when it reached its highest point in the sky.

  "Pass, Jane," said he, making room for me to cross the stile. "Go up home, and stay your weary, little, wandering feet at a friend's threshold."

  All I had now to do was to obey him in silence. No need for me to speak and risk my emotions further. But a strange impulse took hold and forced me to turn around once I'd safely passed him.

  "Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you, and wherever you are is my home--my only home."

  I turned again and walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adele was half-wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me "Bonsoir" with glee.

  A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thorn-field Hall. Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided. Her answer was always in the negative. Once, she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home, but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.

  One midsummer eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop to sleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.

  It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four. The sky was

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  a deep blue, nearly purple, with blazes of jewel red where the sun dipped down to set. I walked awhile on the pavement, but a subtle, well-known scent--that of a cigar--stole from some window. I saw the library casement open a handbreadth. I knew I might be watched thence, so I went apart into the orchard.

  No nook in the grounds was more sheltered and more Edenic. It was full of trees and abloom with flowers. A winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating at a giant horse-chestnut tree circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen, but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step was once more stayed by a warning fragrance.

  I knew it well--it was Mr. Rochester's cigar. I looked around and listened. I saw trees laden with ripening fruit. I heard a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off. No moving form was visible, no coming step audible, but that perfume increased. I made for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I saw Mr. Rochester entering. I stepped aside into the ivy recess, where I'd sat with him the morning after the attack on Mr. Mason. He would not stay long, I reasoned. He would soon return whence he came, and if I sat still, he would never see me.

  But eventide was as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive. He strolled on through the fruit trees. A great moth went humming by me. It stopped on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot. He bent to examine it.

  "Now, he has his back towards me," I said to myself. "Perhaps, if I walked softly, I could slip away unnoticed."

  I hadn't even stood before his voice stopped me. "Jane, come and look at this fellow. He reminds me rather of a West Indian insect. There! He has flown."

  The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also, but Mr. Rochester followed me.

  "Turn back?" he said when we reached the wicket. "On so lovely

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  a night, it is a shame to sit in the house. Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"

  "Yes, sir."

  He walked to one side of the horse chestnut. I, to the other.

  "You must have become in some degree attached to the house." He peeked through a branch.

  "I am attached to it, indeed."

  "And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele, too. And even for simple dame Fairfax?"

  "Yes, sir. In different ways, I have an affection for both."

  "You would be sorry to part with them?"

  "Yes."

  "Pity!" He sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events in this life. No sooner have you got settled in a pleasant place than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on."

  "Must I move on, sir? Must I leave Thornfield?"

  "I believe you must, Jane." A few wisps of hair had strayed loose from my bun. He reached out and smoothed them back. "I am sorry, Jane, but I believe indeed you must."

  This was a blow, but I did not let it prostrate me.

  "Well, sir"--
I straightened up--"I shall be ready when the order to march comes."

  "I must give it tonight."

  "Then, you are going to be married, sir?"

  "I have every hope that it will happen soon. Adele must go to school, and you, Miss Slayre, must get a new situation."

  "Of course, sir. I will advertise immediately."

  "No need to advertise. I have already, through the esteemed Lady Ingram, heard of a place that she thinks will suit. It is to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Derby O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You would like Ireland, I think. They're such warmhearted people there, they say."

  "It is a long way off, sir."

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  "From what, Jane?"

  "From England and from Thornfield; and--"

  "Well?"

  "From you, sir." The tears I had struggled against since he first said I must go began to fall. I narrowly avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart. "It is a long way."

  "It is, to be sure. Probably why the old lady recommended it. She might have noticed the way I sometimes look at you when you're sitting in your nook watching over our party. Or the way I look mournful when you're not there. Have you noticed, Jane?"

  "The way you look when I'm not there? How could I, sir?"

  "No." He laughed and drew closer. "The way I sometimes look at you. As if you're the only woman in the room. I daresay it would be vexing to the woman who fancies herself the object of my affections, and her mother, who is eager to secure the match, or at least my fortune, for her daughter. We have been good friends, Jane. Have we not?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to each other. Here is the chestnut tree. Come, we will sit on the bench at its roots in peace tonight, though we might never more be destined to sit together." He seated us, making sure we sat close.