John Eyre

by Mimi Matthews

  The embers in the grate crackled and snapped, sending sparks up the chimney. It startled John. Made him aware that he’d been all but holding his breath as he listened to Bertha’s tale.

  She crossed the room, her crepe skirts rustling over her petticoats. “While he slept in that strange sleep of his, unable to fully wake, unable to do me harm, I poured a whole phial of laudanum down his throat. And then—with Mr. Poole’s help—I bound him with rope and dragged him out into the sunlight.”

  John stared at her, momentarily speechless.

  “You think me hard,” she said. “I have had to be.”

  “Not hard, but—”

  “Any compassion I might have had for him dried up the moment I saw what he’d done to Agnes. And then, when I found the boys…the anger within me grew. It burned so bright, all other emotion was reduced to cinders. I prayed the sun would put an end to him.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “Nothing can.” She raised her glass to her lips, but didn’t drink. “He opened his eyes and writhed about, as if the torments of hell had been unleashed upon him. For the barest moment, I wondered if it was only the madness. The depth of his self-delusion. But his exposed skin began to turn red, as if the sun had burned him. It did burn him. He was weakened tremendously by the exposure. But he did not die.”

  “Was there no one about? No villagers loyal to him who could have stopped you?”

  “Not a one. Those who might have intervened were at market day. Besides, I had Mr. Poole with me—an intimidating fellow at the best of times. We loaded Edward into the cart and covered him with a tarpaulin. While Mr. Poole stood guard, I fetched my belongings—my money, letters of credit, and travel documents—and collected the boys. I made them sit up front with me, wrapped up in one of my cloaks. A more ramshackle lot you couldn’t imagine. But we hadn’t time to do better. By early afternoon, we were on the road to Varna.”

  “And when it grew dark again? What then?”

  “Ah. That was a trick. I knew he abhorred the touch of silver. In the next village we passed, I paid the smithy a small fortune to have a pair of silver manacles cast. It took most of the silver available in the vicinity, including every piece of silver jewelry I had in my possession. All but this.” She touched her locket. “I’d no idea if it would work. I knew my husband was strong, and that what powers he had derived from darkness, but—”

  “Powers?” John couldn’t keep the doubt from seeping into his voice. “You can’t truly believe he’s an unnatural creature?”

  “Can’t I? You said yourself that you saw the wolf on the road to Hay. How do you think such visions manifest?”

  “I don’t know. But—”

  “And what about the mist? You’ve seen it here, the way it clings to everything hereabouts, irrespective of the season. It nearly suffocated me the night it came into my room.”

  He stared at her. “I thought that was smoke. From the fire.”

  She huffed. “There was no fire. It was the mist, come in through an open window. That was him, John. And so was the thunder and lightning that came the night the Eshtons were obliged to shelter at Thornfield.”

  “You’re telling me that he has the ability to influence the weather? To conjure the storm?”

  “No.” Her face was grave, her tone ringing with certainty. “I’m telling you that he is the storm.”

  John’s brow contracted. His initial reaction was one of utter disbelief. And then…

  And then, he reminded himself of all he’d seen since coming to Thornfield. All he’d experienced. And he thought of her—looked at her. Bertha Rochester was no fantasist.

  Her face fell. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I do.” He paused. “That is, I want to. I’m only trying to understand.”

  “I don’t fully understand it myself,” she said. “All I know is that he’s powerful, and that he possesses arts unknown to human men. Before I captured him, I suspect he was capable of transforming himself into the mist or a wolf or any creature of the night. The legends say he can. But since I’ve bound him in silver and deprived him of nourishment, he’s lost that ability. All that’s left is a remnant. A shadow of what he once was. It seeps out of him. And when he’s able to taste a drop of blood—as on the night he bit Mr. Poole’s arm—he gains the ability to direct that shadow. To render it lethal.”

  John recalled the night the mist had come into Bertha’s bedchamber. The way it had seemed to absorb all of the oxygen from the air. It was why he’d thought it was smoke.

  And what of the following morning? John had assumed the bandage on Mr. Poole’s arm had hidden a burn from starting the fire. But it hadn’t been a burn at all. It had been a bite wound, rendered by Mr. Rochester.

  The realization left John cold. He struggled to accept it—to believe it—even as every particle of sense, every logical precept ingrained in him from his youth, rose up in protest at the impossibility of it all.

  “What of the weather?” he asked. “The storm?”

  “The rain and the mist…they’re a manifestation of some sort. A projection of his very essence. So, too, the black wolf, and the feeling that he’s there with you in your room. Even the image you saw in your shaving mirror. The stronger he is, the stronger, and more real, the projection. And he is strong, John. It’s why, even at his weakest, the mist stretches all the way to Millcote.”

  John endeavored not to sound as skeptical as he felt. “And yet you were able to subdue him? To manage him the whole of the journey home?”

  “We traveled by day, exposing him to the sun as much as possible. It was cruel, I know, but it kept him weak and pliable. At night we took turns sleeping, while one of us watched over him—bound in his silver manacles.” She set down her glass, leaving the remainder of her wine untouched. “From Greece, we conveyed him to England by ship. What a fearful voyage I had, with such a monster in the vessel! Mr. Poole knew only that my husband was a madman. A dangerous lunatic. He knew nothing of Edward’s true nature. But I—I knew what he might be capable of if he got free of us. I was ever on my guard.”

  “Mr. Poole has no notion of what Mr. Rochester is? What you believe he is?”

  “None whatsoever. Nor has Mr. Carter, or any of my servants. Before you, the only one to whom I ever told the truth was Blanche Ingram.”

  A sinister chill traced down the back of John’s neck. “Did Mr. Rochester kill her?”

  Tears glistened in Bertha’s eyes. She blinked them away. “Yes.”

  “But…how? You’re not saying he got free of you?”

  She shook her head. “Blanche came the day I arrived home. I told her all. She was doubtful but wouldn’t outright call me a liar. She said she must think on it, and that we would talk again. But I knew when she rode away that she wouldn’t come to any conclusions in my favor. She hadn’t seen the things I’d seen. Couldn’t bring herself to believe me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was my own fault for confiding in her. I put everyone at risk, her most of all. She came back the next day, unannounced. I was engaged with the boys, and Mr. Poole had stepped away from the third-floor room for a moment. I’d told Blanche where my husband was kept. She crept upstairs to speak with him. I presume she wanted to hear his side of the story.

  “It was the space of minutes. Less, probably. He must have beckoned her inside. Convinced her to try to release him. It was enough time for him to snap her neck and tear out her throat. He was starving, you see. Insensible with want. We were able to get to her before he drained her dry, but not soon enough to save her.”

  John’s stomach roiled. “Good lord.”

  “Yes, it wasn’t very pleasant. That night Mr. Poole took her body from the house and left it on the road to Millcote. Later, I released her horse to run home on its own. Everyone believes she broke her neck in a riding accident. But Mr. Po
ole and I know—and now you know—that my husband was to blame.”

  He looked at her in dismay. “How could you bear it? She was your dearest friend.”

  “How could I bear anything? One does what one must. Besides, I hadn’t time to grieve. There was much to be done to make Edward secure. Mr. Poole fashioned stronger silver chains and manacles at his forge. And I had workmen out straightaway to replace the door to my husband’s cell with one of ash wood reinforced with silver.”

  “Why ash?”

  “Folklore and legends.” She toyed with her locket. “I’ve been learning these many months, writing letters and traveling everywhere I could, trying to find answers. It hasn’t been easy. There were peasants along the way from Varna, and later, gentlemen at universities and museums who have tried to help me in the abstract. Have told me stories of men cursed to walk in darkness. Men who must drink the blood of humans in order to maintain their vigor.”

  “Vampyres.”

  “Yes, very like. I must assume my husband is one of them. But not the kind from folklore and legend. Not entirely. He’s not immune to troubles. Indeed, most of his problems are very human. At the time I met him, he was suffering pecuniary difficulties—a result of spending too much on his collection of antiquities. And he had no way to recoup his losses. The abolition of slavery impacted the income generated from his sugar plantations in the West Indies. And the wars with Russia made his homeland unstable. He needed to get out. A wealthy English wife was just what he required.”

  “In your journal, you mention a book at the British Museum. Something he claims to have been searching for all of his life.”

  “The Book of Going Forth By Day.”

  John blinked. “Is that what it’s called?”

  “It’s an Egyptian funerary text. The Book of the Dead, some call it.” She grimaced. “Yes, I found it. Mr. Birch, the gentleman from the antiquities department at the museum, has been translating it for me. It contains spells and so forth. Incantations that will allow the dead to walk among the living. To endure the sunlight. My husband seems to think one of them might heal him of his affliction.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. I’m not searching for ways to render him more human. I’ve been searching for answers to the opposite question.”

  John went still. “You’re trying to find a way to kill him.”

  “You needn’t look so appalled. No such method exists. No spells or incantations. No magic potions. Edward Rochester will outlive us all. God only knows how old he already is. One hundred years? Two hundred? Such a creature cannot be killed.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “But I do. The sun hasn’t managed to put an end to him, nor has the silver. My last hope was in an old book kept at a monastery in Argeș. But even that proved disappointing.”

  John rested his elbows on his knees, his fingers pushing through his hair. She’d been reading a letter from Argeș the day he’d found her weeping on the battlements. The day she’d first broached the subject of marriage. How happy he’d been then. How hopeful for their future together.

  And now, here he was. All these months of building a life here, only to be faced with the same dilemma that had driven him from Lowton. An entanglement with a married lady.

  But no. This wasn’t the same at all.

  Bertha Rochester didn’t need him in the way that Helen Burns had needed him. She didn’t want a savior. She needed an ally. Someone to stand by her side. To support her. To believe her.

  Yes, she’d lied to him. She’d hidden the truth. By God, she’d have committed bigamy! But under what provocation? Her husband was no husband at all. He might not even be human. The existence of such a creature defied belief. And yet…

  John had witnessed the strange happenings around Thornfield. The manifestations. Mist and wolves and ghoulish images in the looking glass.

  She’d been facing it all alone, with no one to confide in. No one to trust. And he wanted to be that person for her. Not because he was particularly brave or heroic, but because he loved her. Admired her—even more so after reading her journal.

  He couldn’t leave her as he’d left Helen. And he couldn’t abandon her to that creature lurking within the tapestried room. He wouldn’t.

  “You haven’t tried everything,” he said.

  “Not everything.” She sighed heavily. “Doubtless I could spend a lifetime on testing out various ancient concoctions.”

  “No.” He sat up. “I meant…you haven’t tried everything. The usual methods.”

  “I shot him through the heart, John. If he can survive that—”

  “And you’re certain you hit him? The pistol didn’t misfire or—”

  “My aim was true. The bullet struck him. It knocked him down. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “But you haven’t tried anything else?”

  “What else is there aside from driving a stake through his heart, or cutting off his head and filling his mouth with garlic?” Her mouth tightened with distaste. “Good God, can you imagine? I want to defeat him, but I could never explain such conduct to anyone. Even Mr. Poole isn’t likely to turn a blind eye to butchery.”

  “Is that what you were advised must be done?”

  “It’s part of the old legends in that region of the world. Heaven knows if it works. Nothing else has. I’ve exposed him to the sunlight. Bound him with silver. Deprived him of blood. And still he lives. Granted, he can no longer tell night from day, but he’s more than capable of doing mischief. I’d convinced myself that he could be left here in Mr. Poole’s care, while you and I—” She broke off. Her mouth tugged downward. “But now, it’s you who are leaving.”

  John was silent. He was struck by an idea as unsettling as any he’d heard thus far. Under normal circumstances it wouldn’t bear thinking of.

  But these circumstances were far from normal.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “Not yet.”

  She regarded him warily. “I don’t understand.”

  “I have an idea of something that might work,” he said. “A way you might be alleviated of your burden, without any gruesome aftermath.”

  Deep in her gaze, a spark of hopefulness flickered. “Go on.”

  Rising to his feet, he offered her his hand. “Perhaps it’s better if I show you.”

  The small, rigid leather case stood open on a chest in John’s bedchamber, revealing the more than two dozen glass phials of laudanum within. Bertha withdrew one of them, examining it with a frown. “Where did you get all of these?”

  “A village doctor in Lowton. He prescribed it for my headaches. I thought I’d explained.”

  “I knew you were taking laudanum when you arrived, but this…” She returned the phial to the case. It settled into its compartment with a delicate clink. “This is a great deal of opium, John.”

  “Enough to kill a man, I suspect.”

  Her eyes met his.

  He stared back at her, his heart beating heavily.

  “Would it work?” she asked finally.

  “You tell me.” His bedchamber was shadowed, lit only by a single taper candle and the dim evening light filtering in through his window curtains. It cast half of Bertha’s face in darkness.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “But you’ve given him laudanum before. It helped you overpower him.”

  “That was naught but a single small phial.. And it didn’t exactly put him to sleep.”

  “What effect did it have?”

  She wandered across the room, her brows knitting in thought. “It seemed to affect his senses. He was less reasoned, and a bit uncoordinated. A bit…less human.”

  John leaned back against the chest. “But weaker?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how much of that was because of the l
audanum and how much was because of the sunlight. When I captured him, I used every tool I had, all at once. It’s difficult to tell which was the most powerful. Indeed, it’s all so much chance.”

  “You said the laudanum repulsed him,” John reminded her. “He must fear it for a reason.”

  “I daresay it’s because it pollutes the blood of his victims.”

  John suppressed a grimace. “If he drank it, would it render him insensible?”

  “I suppose it might. But put him to sleep forever? I don’t know if it’s possible.” She stopped her pacing to stand beside his box bed. “How would we even manage it?”

  He considered a moment. “Have you a needle and syringe?”

  “Heavens no. Only Mr. Carter possesses such things. And he isn’t likely to lend them to us. Even if he did—can you imagine what he’d think if my lunatic husband was suddenly to die of an overdose injection of laudanum? He’s a good man, Carter, but I wouldn’t wager on his condoning murder.”

  John recoiled at the word. “It wouldn’t be murder. Not if Rochester is what you say he is.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I say. All that matters is what people believe. And no one is going to believe he’s an unnatural creature, least of all the local magistrate. Philosophical arguments about the nature of humanity are beyond his purview.” The glimmer of hopefulness in her eyes flickered out. “No. I don’t believe we can use laudanum, any more than we can employ a stake through the heart.”

  “What, then?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing that can be done. Our only hope is to leave this place with the children.” She remained where she was, back propped against the wall of the box bed. “Will you reconsider? I know we can’t marry now, but there’s no reason you couldn’t accompany—”