Jane Slayre

by Sherri Browning Erwin

  "They acted badly," I said.

  "But they were dead and without a chance to meet the charmer my wife had become. I should have thought of it sooner. To England, then, I conveyed her. A fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thorn-field and saw her safely lodged in that third-story room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's den. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed, for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret. Besides, she had lucid intervals of days--sometimes weeks--which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimsby Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter, are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence."

  "I owe Grace Poole my thanks and many apologies. I've thought so ill of her."

  "It is my fault, for I helped in creating the impression. She

  282

  doesn't need approval when there's money to be made. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper, though, owing partly to a fault of her own, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant. She has never failed to take advantage of her guardian's temporary lapses, once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell and issue forth in the nighttime. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed."

  "And the cows, Edward. She attacked the cows." I still was not sure if she was responsible for killing the charwoman, but no need to mention her. Edward had not been at home.

  "The cows?"

  "Later that night, there were two found mutilated. One in the pasture and one dragged straight through the yard."

  "Ah, yes. Before she set my bed afire, she went for a rampage in the surroundings. Thank God for the cows, easy targets, or she might have gone after a person. I'm sure they filled her up suitably. It was the first time she made it out of the house during a full moon. She probably wouldn't have even returned had it not been for attacking the cows fueling her excitement to murderous intent. She has always had it in for me, Jane. I believe she meant to devour me rather than just burn me in bed, but perhaps she knocked over the candle and frightened herself to seek the safety of the third-story sanctuary. Hard to say how it all came about."

  "The main thing is that you were safe, sir."

  "That we were all safe, Jane, my angel. On her second escape, she paid that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she spent her fury on your wedding apparel. On what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect."

  "It wasn't quite a full moon. I think she was yet more lunatic than wolf. But back to your story--once you got her settled here at Thornfield hall, what did you do?"

  283

  "What did I do? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp. Where did I go? I pursued wanderings that could take me far and wide. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield."

  "But you could not marry, sir."

  "I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to tell my tale plainly and make my proposals openly. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another. Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society. No circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman in all countries of my travel, and I could not find her. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me, for the antipodes of the Creole, and I longed vainly. Yet I could not live alone, so I tried the companionship of mistresses."

  "Celine Varens." I nodded.

  "She was the first. You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent. I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet, but heavy, mindless, and not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake, don't you?"

  "I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes. Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course."

  "It was with me, and I did not like it. Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior, and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading.

  284

  I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine, Giacinta, and Clara."

  I felt the truth of these words, and I drew from them the certain inference that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling that now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this conviction. It was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial.

  "You are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses, in a bitter frame of mind--the result of a useless, roving life--recalled by business, I came back to England. On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace, no pleasure there. On Hay Lane I saw a quiet, little figure standing in the road. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it. I had no presentiment of what it would be to me, no inward warning that the arbitress of my life waited there in humble guise. I did not know, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. I was surly, but the thing would not go. It stood by me with strange perseverance and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand; and aided I was.

  "When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new--a fresh sap and sense--stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf must return to me, that it belonged to my house down below, or I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge without singular regret. I heard you come home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of you. The next day I observed you while you played with Adele in the gallery. Adele claimed your attention for a while, yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere. Still, you were very patient with her. You talked to her and amused her a long time.

  285

  "Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual character I suspected was yours. I desired to search it deeper and know it better."

  "Don't talk any more of those days," I interrupted, dashing away some tears from my eyes. His language was torture to me. I knew what I must do--and do soon--and all these reminiscences and these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult.

  "No, Jane. What necessity is there to dwell on the past, when the present is so much surer--the future so much brighter? You see now how the case stands--do you not? After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I truly love. I have found you. You are my better self, my good angel. It was because I felt and knew this that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery. You know now that I have but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you, but I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly. I should have appealed to your nobleness an
d magnanimity, shown to you not my resolution, but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then"--he dropped to his knees at my feet--"I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane, give it me now."

  My gaze searched his. How could I? How could I not? He wrapped his arms around my knees, dropped his head on my lap, and looked up again.

  "Why are you silent, Jane?"

  A hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment, full of struggle! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved. I knew how I felt about his wife, his very much alive creature of a wife. In name only, perhaps, but here she was, now known to all. Here, she lived. She shared his name. It left me one option, and he had told me how he'd felt about his mistresses.

  286

  "Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise--'I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.' "

  "Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours."

  Another long silence.

  "Jane!" he cried with a gentleness that broke me down with grief. "Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?"

  "I do."

  "Jane." He rose and stood over me, pulling me to my feet so that I stood right up against him, so close to him I could feel him breathing. "Do you mean it now?"

  "I do."

  "And now?" He dropped soft kisses on my forehead, my cheek, the tip of my nose. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me even closer. He kissed me as I'd never been kissed, and it aroused something wild in me that demanded exploration. I tasted him, the tobacco and the wine, until I was trembling and breathless and--insane! It was insane, to allow him to come so close, to nearly convince me.

  "I do." With two hands on his shoulders, I pushed him away hard.

  "Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This--this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me."

  "It would to obey you."

  A wild look raised his brows and crossed his features. "One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. What have I without you? I have but the maniac upstairs. As well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard."

  That could be done, I thought, but did not say. I had a past, too. It served me well to remember it now. I'd stood up to vampyres and zombies and ended miserable lives with mercy and kindness. I was Jane Slayre, and I was strong.

  "You have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need

  287

  fear to offend by living with me." he stepped closer, as if to try his seduction again. I stepped back.

  Still indomitable was the reply. I cared for myself. I knew what it could cost me to stay as his inferior, to live a life that would never be all that we wanted for ourselves, with his wife in the shadows between us.

  I retired to the door.

  "You are leaving me?"

  "Yes."

  "Withdraw, then. I consent. But remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room. Think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings--think of me."

  He turned away.

  I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back. I turned his face to me. I kissed his cheek. I smoothed his hair with my hand.

  "God bless you, my dear Edward! God keep you from harm and wrong, direct you, solace you, and reward you well for your past kindness to me."

  "Your love would have been my best reward. Without it, my heart is broken."

  Up the blood rushed to his face, forth flashed the fire from his eyes. He held his arms out, but I evaded the embrace and at once quitted the room.

  "Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, "Farewell forever!"

  That night I thought I would never sleep, but the events of the day must have taxed me more than I'd imagined, for I fell to a heavy slumber as soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood. I dreamt I lay in the red room at Gates-head, that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange musings. The light that had long ago struck me into syncope, recalled

  288

  in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look. The roof resolved to clouds, high and dim. The gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come--watched with the strangest anticipation. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud. A hand first penetrated the clouds and waved them away. Then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit. Immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near it whispered in my heart:

  "My daughter, follow your instincts. Seek the Slayres."

  "Mother, I will."

  So I answered after I had waked from the trancelike dream. It was yet night, but July nights are short. Soon after midnight, dawn comes. If I didn't go now, I would never go.

  I rose. I dressed. I gathered some linen, a locket, a ring, six stakes, my daggers. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester had gifted me a few days ago. I left that. It was not mine. It belonged to the visionary bride who had melted in air, like a vampyre after a staking. I pocketed my purse, containing twenty shillings, all I had. I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, gathered my parcel and my slippers, which I would not yet put on, and stole from my room.

  "Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!" I whispered as I glided past her door.

  "Farewell, my darling Adele!" I said as I glanced towards the nursery.

  No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to deceive a fine ear. For all I knew, it might now be listening.

  I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause, but as my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there. He walked restlessly from wall to wall, and again and again he sighed while I listened. A heaven--a temporary heaven--was in this room for me, if I chose.

  289

  That kind master, who could not now sleep, was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning. I would be gone. He would have me sought for, all efforts in vain. He would feel himself forsaken, his love rejected. He would suffer. He might grow desperate. His conduct was all under his control, not mine. Still, my hand moved towards the lock. I caught it back and glided on.

  Drearily I wound my way downstairs. I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I got some water. I got some bread. All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed through, and shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and locked, but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that I departed. It, too, I shut. I was out of Thornfield.

  A mile off, beyond the fields, was a road that stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote, a road I had never travelled, but often noticed, and wondered where it led. There I went. No reflection was to be allowed now. Not one glance was to be cast back, or forward. I simply walked, one step at a time, away from all I knew and loved. I followed my instincts, as instructed by my ghostly dream or visitor of last night.

  My conscience warned me not to turn, that I could not give in. Even as I prepared to marry him, I was too aware of my inferiority of position. Would he not begin to resent me? Mr. Rochester was social by nature. How would he get on cut off from all his friends? Bad enough that he would marry his governess, but to simply take her as a mistress? I did not care what other people might say as much as I thought of me. Could I live as less than I should be? A mistress, instead of a wife. A dependent, instead of an equal. A merciful keeper, instead of a mercy killer.

  Instinct told me I was not yet the woman I should be. I had much to accomplish, much to learn. I would follow my instinct to my destiny.

  I walked on, through cramps and fatigue, until I reached the

  290
<
br />   road. When I got there, I needed to sit and rest under a tree. I heard wheels and saw a coach coming. I stood up and lifted my hand. It stopped. I asked the driver where it was going, and he named a place a long way off, somewhere I was sure Mr. Rochester had never mentioned and probably had no connections. I negotiated a price. He asked for thirty shillings. I had twenty. He said he would try to make do. He further gave me leave to get in, as the vehicle was empty. I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.

  Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never have to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love.

  CHAPTER 31

  TWO DAYS LATER, THE coachman set me down at a place called Whitcross. He could take me no farther for the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world. I was alone, the coach long gone, before I realised that I'd left my parcel behind on the seat. It was too late to retrieve it. I was absolutely destitute.

  My instincts had led me here. Perhaps my instincts were a little off and not to be trusted.

  Whitcross, I quickly discovered, was not a town, nor even a hamlet. It was a stone pillar, whitewashed with four arms pointing in four directions, set up at the meeting of four roads. According to my trusty guidepost, the nearest town to which these pointed was ten miles off, the farthest, a distance of twenty miles. From the well-known names of these towns, I learned in what county I had lighted, a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with