John Eyre

by Mimi Matthews

  You and I have long been special friends, and I trust we shall always be so, no matter what direction our lives take. Do you imagine that, if you married your vicar, I would be jealous? Of course not! I would rejoice in your happiness. Can you not do the same for me?

  The tone of your last letter makes me reluctant to share the following, for I know it might serve to deepen the rift between us. But here it is: Mr. Rochester and I were married last week. We are now husband and wife.

  You will reproach me for marrying so far away from home. No doubt you’ll say I should have waited so that I could be wed in the church at Hay, among all of my friends and neighbors. But our decision to wed in Greece owes more to logic than to sentiment. My new husband is obliged to return to his ancestral home for a short time. It is an old Bulgarian estate, some seventy miles north of Varna. He inherited it from his mother’s people, and has many distant relations there who will be wanting to meet me before we return to England.

  And yes, my dear, I am returning home. My husband is very keen on coming to England, and can speak of little else. Our visit to Bulgaria will be only a brief one. Through the winter, I expect, with plans to depart for Thornfield Hall sometime in the spring. You may write to me care of the consulate at Varna. I’ve enclosed their direction.

  Pray don’t be worried for me. I’m still quite capable of looking after myself—much to my new husband’s dismay. Since the incidences of that wild beast near our villa, I’ve taken to carrying my Nock percussion pistol in a specially made pocket of my skirt. It seemed unimportant at the time, such that I never thought to share the fact with Mr. Rochester. But as we traveled up the coast from Athens, I had occasion to use my pistol, and fear I shocked the poor man.

  The sun had set, and our coach had come to a lonely road. As I was out stretching my legs, a creature approached. I glimpsed it in the moonlight—a great beast rustling inside the bushes—and sensed it was about to spring. Drawing my pistol, I leveled it and fired. I didn’t kill the creature, but whatever it was (a bear?), it fled for its life. As I returned my pistol to its pocket, I saw my husband regarding me with a very strange expression. He asked me where I had got it, and I told him that it was mine, but not to fear, for I knew full well how to use it, and all manner of weaponry, my father having taught me.

  Oh, Blanche, if you could have seen the look on Mr. Rochester’s face! It’s a giddy feeling to surprise someone like that. And to impress them, too, for I believe he was impressed by my skill. He never said so, but during the remainder of the journey, I frequently observed him studying me—with a newfound respect, I daresay.

  There’s so much more I long to share with you. All the details of my wedding ceremony, and other, more personal details, too. But I won’t do so. Not until I can be assured you will receive such confidences with a spirit of friendship. It pains me that we are at odds. What would I do without my bosom friend to confide in? Be happy for me, my dear.

  Your devoted,

  Bertha

  Krepostta Nosht-Vŭlk

  Senniskali, Bulgaria

  Tuesday, 10 January 1843

  Dearest Blanche, —

  My sincerest apologies for my failure to write. I have been these seven weeks ensconced in Mr. Rochester’s house on the Bulgarian coast, a veritable prisoner of the inclement weather. House, I say. In truth, it’s a fortress, located high atop the cliffs overlooking the Black Sea, far from any semblance of civilization. It’s quite medieval, really, composed almost entirely of massive old stone, with sunken doorways, broken battlements, and high iron-barred windows that admit no sunlight. Carved figures loom at every corner, worn to unrecognizability by time and weather. Wolves, I believe they once were.

  The only modernization to Nosht-Vŭlk (what the natives call the estate) has been to the room in which my husband keeps his antiquities. It is a vault lined with deep shelves and glass cases of ancient texts and strange statuary, tablets, and jars. These artifacts come from all around the globe. Not only Egypt, but Asia, Europe, and even the New World. In the vault they’re sheltered from light and extremes of temperature, preserved in a near perfect state.

  Mr. Rochester keeps the door locked. It even has a bar on the interior so that while he’s inside with his collection, no one can burst in and disturb him. I’ve been permitted to view his treasures on occasion, and have determined that the vault is, by far, the most comfortable room in the house.

  Mind you, I’m not complaining, except to say that when combined with our isolated location, the weather has made correspondence nearly impossible. The village post is unreliable at the best of times, and the servants my new husband employs even more so. Not a one of them speaks a word of English, and though I was assured they had a rudimentary grasp of French, when I address them in it, they pretend not to understand me.

  To make matters worse, my maid, Agnes, has left me, without giving the courtesy of notice. She simply disappeared one evening. I discovered her absence the following morning when she didn’t come to my room to help me dress, and only later discovered that she’d hired a calèche to take her to Varna, and from there no doubt returned to Greece. She even took my pistol, if you can believe it. I daresay she was frightened. She must have been to embark on a journey in all of this snow.

  It’s an odd thing, for she gave no indication of fear or unhappiness. Indeed, she was a hearty creature, and a loyal one, too. The native girl Mrs. Wren has found to replace her isn’t half as competent. She has a sly way about her, which makes me reluctant to trust her with anything.

  Mr. Poole still abides with me, thank heaven. Though I’ve begun to fear that he, too, will depart any day, if not for home, then for more favorable accommodations outside of my husband’s influence. I scarcely know if such a place exists hereabouts. When meeting Mr. Rochester and Mrs. Wren in Cairo, I had no idea they were such important people. The way the locals address them, one would think my husband and his sister were royalty. The villagers all but bow and scrape. Meanwhile, they look on me with expressions of suspicion, sometimes going so far as to cross themselves when they think I’m not looking.

  It’s strange, really, for the Bulgarian villagers we met as we traveled to Varna were exceedingly hospitable. I’d expected the same from the residents of Senniskali, the rural village at the foot of my husband’s estate. However, the villagers hereabouts have not been welcoming to me at all. I begin to wonder if they’re even Bulgarian. I asked Mr. Rochester about this, but he would only admit to them being a diverse group, owing to recent wars in the region. Mrs. Wren was a bit more forthcoming, telling me that most of the original inhabitants of Senniskali had died out long ago and have since been replaced with Romani settlers.

  Our position high atop the cliffs means that we are constantly buffeted by sea winds. At any given time, one can hear the crash of the waves roaring more than two hundred feet below. It is an unsettling sound, made more so by the emptiness of the skies above. Unlike the Yorkshire coast, there are no sea birds squawking. No avian life of any kind hereabouts that I’ve seen.

  I was assured we would only be staying through the winter, but now even that appears uncertain. Mr. Rochester has been consumed with business. Something about his investments in the West Indies. He hasn’t confided in me as yet. I must own I am disappointed. In Greece, as in Egypt, he professed to value my opinions. Here, however, he is content to keep his own counsel.

  As before, much of our time together is restricted to the evenings. He says that the sun gives him headaches and causes weakness in his limbs. I had thought his ailment a mere intolerance to the blazing heat of Egypt and Athens, but it is, apparently, something of a graver nature—a rare sensitivity, the management of which he has been navigating his entire existence. I’ve made it my mission to help him find a cure for his ailment, and have spent many hours in my husband’s library poring over old medical texts and books of folk remedies.

  I won’t say that Mr
. Rochester appreciates my efforts. Indeed, I suspect he hasn’t wholly acclimated to being married. He still considers Nosht-Vŭlk to be entirely his. All of my attempts to learn about its management have been firmly rebuffed—as have my efforts to take household matters in hand. He has even gone so far as to forbid me from exploring certain parts of the fortress. He claims that there are floors above and below with rotting wood, and other dangerous conditions. It isn’t safe, he says, to roam about unescorted. I do believe he’s right about the rot, for at certain moments as I walk through the dark halls or sit quietly in my husband’s vast library, I have caught the vague scent of decay.

  I’m quickly learning that marriage is a union defined by compromise. Though I sometimes find my husband’s directives to be senseless, I’ve found it easier to comply with his wishes than to engage in countless arguments. This is especially true in matters related to his health. For a man who appears to be in perfect physical condition, he has an abundance of medical issues. I sometimes wonder if they’re real or imagined.

  On our wedding night, for example, he asked me to remove the silver timepiece locket that I always wear. You know the one. I explained to him what it meant to me—that it held the final portraits of Mama and Papa—but he was adamant that I take it off. He claims that silver is all but toxic to him, and says that if it touches his skin, even for an instant, he breaks out in the most painful rash. I ask you, Blanche, have you ever heard of such a thing?

  But you must forgive my endless prattling. Reading over all that I’ve written, I’m tempted to tear up this letter and start afresh. You will think me dreadfully unhappy here. Not at all, my dear. I promise you, I’m perfectly content. I’m only a little homesick, I suppose, for you and for Thornfield. Too many weeks have passed since last I received a letter from you. Are you well? Are you happy? Do write to me and set my mind at ease.

  As soon as the weather clears, I shall endeavor to have a servant journey to Varna to see what’s going on at the consulate. Perhaps they’ve forgotten to forward my mail. Or perhaps there’s been a mix-up with the direction to Senniskali. Trust me to sort it out.

  Until then, all my love to you, dearest,

  Bertha

  Krepostta Nosht-Vŭlk

  Senniskali, Bulgaria

  Wednesday, 15 February 1843

  My Dear Blanche, —

  You’ll be pleased to hear that I enlisted Mr. Poole to make the journey to Varna, and he returned this morning with a whole stack of your letters. They have been sitting at the consulate, waiting for me to retrieve them. Apparently, the consulate was unable to forward them on to Senniskali. I don’t fully understand why. Some bureaucratic nonsense, no doubt. At any rate, I have your letters in hand now and have read them all one after the other. They’ve given me such solace and have inspired more than one appreciative laugh. Your descriptions of the vicar are delightful. He sounds a rare fellow, and I’m so pleased to hear that your courtship continues apace.

  Things here are much as they were in my last letter, save for one alarming incident that I must recount, if for no other reason than purely for the oddness of it, and because it has greatly affected both my peace of mind and the harmony of my marriage.

  It all began with Mr. Poole. Unfortunately he was injured during the journey to the consulate. A wheel came loose on the carriage he was travelling in, and he and several passengers were thrown into a ravine. Mr. Poole escaped the accident and was able to continue on to Varna by hired calèche, however when he returned home today, I discovered that he’d hurt his arm quite badly. He’s such a stoic figure, you know, and won’t admit to any aches and pains. I mightn’t have ever known he was hurt if he hadn’t nearly fainted while climbing the stairs into the hall.

  Mr. Rochester wasn’t at home at the time, nor was Mrs. Wren. The two of them had left the previous night to visit Mr. Rochester’s solicitor on the Wallachian border—an elderly fellow, I’m told, who is unable to come to us himself. I would have gone with them, but my husband insisted I remain. He didn’t like the idea of my traveling at night, and claimed the journey would be faster if just he and his sister went, accustomed as they are to the peculiarities of the countryside.

  But what to do about Mr. Poole? I haven’t been in residence long enough to know of any surgeon in the area. And Mr. Poole’s arm was beginning to swell up most dreadfully. Left to my own devices, I could think of nothing else but to walk down into the village and ask after a healer. Senniskali was relatively empty today. Most of the villagers had gone into town for the twice-monthly market, and others had accompanied my husband on his journey to the border. Those remaining looked on me with wary eyes.

  I gestured at them, addressed them in my schoolgirl French, and—at length—did my best to utter the few words of Bulgarian that I’ve learned (my accent is atrocious). Initially, they drew back from me. They must have thought me a veritable madwoman. No one would so much as grant me a minute of their time. And then the queerest thing happened. An elderly peasant woman approached, clothed in loose-fitting garments—an embroidered tunic and apron worn beneath a warm scarf and coat—with a belt at her waist on which hung a variety of dried herbs and root vegetables.

  She spoke a few words of English, for which I was ridiculously grateful. Through that, I learned that she wouldn’t accompany me back to the house. Indeed, she outright refused. She would only see Mr. Poole if he was brought to her. Well, you can imagine my discomfiture—and his, as well. But with a great deal of patience, I somehow managed to get him down to the village so the woman could have a look at his arm.

  After that, the proceedings took a surprisingly modern turn. I had expected her to treat Mr. Poole with some natural remedy, but drawing us both into her thatched hut, she produced a locked box filled with stoppered glass bottles. She mixed the contents of one of the bottles and used it to clean Mr. Poole’s wound. She then withdrew another bottle, from which she urged him to drink. He proved hesitant—understandable after the scorching pain he experienced from the first treatment (which I suspect was some derivative of sulfuric acid).

  I asked her what the second bottle contained and she said something in Bulgarian—or possibly Romani—which was difficult for me to discern. We went on this way, back and forth, in abject frustration, as she tried to get him to drink from the bottle, until finally she said: “Lod-num.”

  That, at least, I could comprehend. I took the bottle from her, unstopped it and smelled it. Sure enough, its fragrance was as sickly sweet as the laudanum Mama was accustomed to taking in the final days of her illness. Just to be certain, I tipped a few drops of the stuff onto my tongue. It was definitely laudanum, and so I assured Mr. Poole.

  He swallowed the contents. The drug shortly did its work, and while he was pliable, the woman set his arm in a long splint. She then gave me three small glass phials of laudanum, which I assumed were to be administered to Mr. Poole over the course of the next several days, should his pain become too much to bear. I tried to offer the woman money, but she pushed it away. Instead, she briefly covered my hand with hers, folding my fingers tight over the phials of laudanum.

  “Hurry home, my child,” she said in heavily accented English. “Morții călătoresc repede.”

  I don’t know what she said, or what language she spoke in, but I must tell you, Blanche, it fairly turned my blood to ice. I’d never seen this woman before. Didn’t know who she was or where she came from. But the tenor of her voice told me that she’d just issued a warning. I was incapable of ignoring it. Gathering my wits, and the semi-alert Mr. Poole, I returned to the house and bolted the door firmly behind me.

  When Mr. Rochester returned this evening, I met him at the door, anxious for the comfort of his arms. It suddenly all seemed very silly—the healer and her mysterious words. I felt so stupid to have been afraid. I opened my mouth to tell him about it, but before I could utter so much as a single syllable, Mr. Rochester’s hands gripped me ve
ry hard about the shoulders. He thrust me away from him, his face contorting into a fearsome mask of anger. He demanded to know what I’d done.

  I was speechless. He’d never before taken such a tone with me. I told him that I didn’t know what he was talking about, and asked what he meant. He accused me of lying and said that I “reeked of the stuff.” He then shook me hard, making my head snap forward and back on my neck, ordering me to tell him where I had got it.

  My heart was beating like a drum. I told him that he was making no sense at all. Was it the laudanum he smelled? But surely that was impossible. I’d only swallowed a few drops, and that was just to be certain that it was laudanum. I explained as much, telling him the story of Mr. Poole’s injury, and how the healer in the village had treated it. No sooner had I finished than he abruptly shoved me away from him, so forcefully that I nearly fell upon the flagstone floor of the hall.

  He commanded me to go to my room, claiming that he couldn’t be near me in my present condition. He said the smell of laudanum—or any opiate—was repulsive to him. I tried to reason with him, but he only roared at me to go, scaring me so much with his rage that I could do nothing but flee.

  As I sit here in my bedchamber, I’m ashamed to reflect upon the altercation. He was being wholly unreasonable, and yet…I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight. I was too afraid to do either. Heaven help me, Blanche, I ran away from him and raced up the stairs like a scalded dog. Mr. Poole is here with me now, keeping vigil on a chair near the door. I didn’t dare leave him outside to face my husband’s wrath.