Mr. Rochester

by Sarah Shoemaker

  “Fitzcharles,” I said. “Thank you for clarifying.”

  “Jam,” he said, “I hope you won’t mind—or be hopelessly confused—if I still call you that: you have always seemed like the little brother I wished I’d had.”

  “I’m flattered,” I responded, and in a way I was, though I would vastly have preferred to be called “Edward.” “Fitzcharles,” I added then, not yet used to the name. We left the room together, his hand on my back, and as we walked across the entrance hall I saw from the corner of my eye Rowland standing in the gallery at the top of the stairs, watching.

  I cannot remember how I managed to get through that evening, for it was not at all as I had assumed, beginning of course with Rowland, whose appearance there was a sore disappointment to me. As well, I was uncomfortable with Carrot, since the name “Fitzcharles” meant nothing to me, and “Thomas” even less, and I was piqued at finding myself still labeled with the childish “Jam.”

  When we came down for dinner, I was mortified that the tailor in Maysbeck had gotten it all wrong: the fashion for men that season was not the pantaloons he had urged on me, but knee breeches, which both the tailor and I had thought had gone all out of style, and their shoes were the slim pumps I had seen in the cobbler’s window and not the sturdy shoes I wore. I felt entirely the country bumpkin.

  But the women! They came down eventually, as the sun was lowering in the west, turning the reds and blues of the room to the shades of jewels. There were two of them, and like jewels themselves, but something light and bright, perhaps diamonds or emeralds. They were Miss Kent and Miss Gilpatrick, and they were cousins. Clothed in shimmering gowns, they floated around the room like captive butterflies, flirting with each of us in turn, laughing, showing their dimples.

  Carrot displayed an ease that was fitting, while Rowland stood off, as an observer, and even when the women approached him, he seemed to maintain a distance from them, as if to demonstrate that he could not so easily be brought into the circle of their enchantment. Nevertheless, it was clear he held an attraction for them: fair of hair and complexion, with azure eyes and an aquiline nose, he was tall and slim and lithe; he surely looked the perfect gentleman, the perfect dancing partner. I could imagine that people would want to trust my brother, take him into their confidence, hope to be his favorite. I marveled that this was how he appeared to others, knowing what was in his heart. Still, I was eager to learn from watching him, if I could—for it was clear to me he had experience with women.

  To me as well, the young ladies returned again and again, perhaps because it was clear I was delighted with them—as who would not be? They were lovely creatures, with light, pure voices and lively eyes that danced with delight when one said something especially clever. And I was, I admit, dying to appear clever.

  Dinner was mostly full of talk of the ride that morning, which allowed me to sit silently and observe, grateful at least that my pantaloons and shoes were now out of view. Carrot, of course, was seated at the bottom of the table and Rowland at the top, with me on Carrot’s right and the two women across from me. It should have been an honor to be seated at the host’s right, but I could think only of the honor, instead, that was accorded to Rowland that he took the top of the table as a matter of custom. I thought it must mean that he frequently dined with Carrot, and, indeed, he seemed quite at home at Lanham-Hall. I could not help wondering if Carrot was equally at home at Thornfield. I pushed that thought out of my mind and concentrated on my dinner.

  Partway through the meal, the subject arose as to what entertainment we should have for the evening. “Music, of course!” Carrot responded. He smiled at both of the ladies. “With such musical skill in our presence, how could we not!”

  Miss Kent turned to Rowland. “And you as well, Rowland; shall we hear from you?”

  “A duet, perhaps?” he responded.

  “And you?” Miss Gilpatrick asked me. “Do you sing?”

  I flushed. “Not in public,” I said, laughing to cover my embarrassment.

  “Everyone sings,” Rowland said laconically. “I’m sure you do, as well.” I turned to him in surprise. What did he know of me? Why would he say such a thing?

  “I’ve heard him,” Carrot put in. “Many a sea mariners’ song we’ve shared, have we not?” And without waiting for a response from me, he went on: “And he reads. We had a brilliant mentor in the art of reading when we were boys, and I daresay—”

  “That settles it!” Miss Kent interrupted. “Music and reading! What better way to spend an evening. In fact, Thomas, I was perusing your library, and I saw—”

  “Perusing my library!” Carrot laughed. “And what caught your eye? Tacitus on war? Or was it Julius Caesar? The collected dispatches of Wellington, perhaps?”

  “Don’t act the fool,” Miss Kent admonished. “It doesn’t become you.”

  I was surprised both at the tone of her voice and at Carrot’s docile reaction to it. He was, after all, the lord of the manor, and what was she? Well, indeed what was she? I had no idea. There had been no title to her name, simply Miss Kent. But she did have a quick wit and a quicker tongue. “Yes, I saw those boring things,” she went on. “Though God knows who would want to read them. And I surely did not see what I might have been looking for. It seems you have no books by Jane Austen in this house, even though everyone knows she was the best writer England has produced since William Shakespeare—”

  Rowland laughed outrageously at that. “Since William Shakespeare? Jane Austen? That simpering little thing who wrote only of women seeking husbands? As if we don’t have enough of that in our real lives without having to read about it too?”

  Miss Kent ignored him completely. “But I did see a book by the author of Waverley. Has anyone read that one?”

  “I have, in fact,” Carrot said. “But Rob Roy is better.”

  “You have that!” Miss Kent said.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Then it’s decided,” Miss Gilpatrick said. “Lydia and I and Rowland shall play and do duets, and later Fitzcharles and the young Mr. Rochester will read.”

  Carrot shot a glance at me and I nodded assent. We had all been forced to read at Mr. Lincoln’s and he did not permit anything but the most professional of performances. We were both excellent readers.

  And that is how the evening progressed. After our brandy and cigars—and after the women had returned from doing whatever it is they do when men have brandy and cigars—we had music and reading. Rowland was a strong tenor and he sang with each of the women, who also sang solo, and even Carrot sang once or twice with Miss Kent. Twice I was asked to sing, but I steadfastly refused.

  When we turned to the reading, I, as guest, was given the honor of starting the book. It could not have been a more affecting beginning:

  How have I sinned, that this affliction

  Should light so heavy on me? I have no more sons,

  And this no more mine own.

  I was transfixed from the first words, but, ever conscious of my place, I yielded to Carrot much sooner than I would have wished. We were all so entranced with the reading that by the time we parted for the night, we had read well into the first book of Rob Roy, and I had made a mental note to buy my own copy at the first opportunity.

  As the evening ended and the gathering broke up, I was pulled aside by Miss Kent. “You have a wonderful voice for reading, full and powerful,” she said. “You have it in you to be a singer, if you wish it,” she said.

  Flattered by both her words and the attention she was paying me, I gushed, “Of course!”

  “Tomorrow I could give you some training,” she suggested.

  I smiled broadly. She was a lovely person, with a piquant face surrounded by curls, and I could hardly believe the attention she was paying me. “I would like that very much,” I said.

  “Tomorrow morning, then. Just after breakfast. Thomas will be inclosed in his library for a time and your brother will be off riding. The house will be quiet.”

>   “I should be grateful.”

  “And you shall practice on your own, and when next you come, you will be adept and surprise all of them!” She clapped her hands in delight at the thought.

  At that moment, my heart felt light. I did not know when I could come back to Lanham-Hall, but I vowed it would happen.

  Chapter 13

  I have always been an early riser, and the next morning I was up before dawn and dressed quickly. At Thornfield-Hall, I would have wandered to the kitchen to see what was afoot, but I was a stranger at Lanham-Hall, and no doubt not welcome in the nether regions, so I stepped outside into the chill air and made for the stable.

  In my childhood days I especially loved the stables: the damp, musky smell of the horses, the sharp, earthy odor of straw and the sweet perfume of hay, the rich scent of oiled leather. And the wood of the stalls, rubbed as smooth and satiny as the flanks of the animals they inclosed; and the warm touch of an animal’s withers, the moist velvet of its nose. The one who caught my eye that morning was a large chestnut filly that nuzzled me as I put out my hand, turning away in disappointment when she found no treat. I took her halter, though, and turned her back, and spoke sweet, soft words to her, and she stretched her neck and nibbled at my ear and I could not help laughing from the tickle of it.

  “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” I started at the sound.

  “Knew I would find you here,” Rowland went on. “You used to like them. Horses.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Ride much?”

  “Not really. Is she yours?”

  “Oh yes.” He drew the halter from my hands. “You will be leaving Maysbeck soon?” he asked, without glancing back at me.

  “Perhaps not so soon. Mr. Wilson had a stroke, and now I am more or less in charge.” It was vanity on my part to say that; he was no doubt in correspondence with our father and would already have known.

  His back to me, he shrugged as if it were nothing to him who was in charge of a mill. I watched as he saddled the filly, not even waiting for a groom to do so. “You’ll have to get yourself a horse when you are in Jamaica,” he said. “One can’t live a proper life there without a horse.”

  “Am I really going to Jamaica?” I asked. Though it had been mentioned to me, the possibility still seemed distant, unimaginable.

  “Of course. It’s all settled.”

  All settled? He knew that and I did not? And, further, what exactly was settled? I should have asked him more, but I was wary of showing too much ignorance of my own fate. Instead, I only asked, “When? When will I go?”

  He turned to me, an odd smile on his face. “When you are ready.”

  When you are ready. My father—our father—had said that. There was a plan for me that even Rowland knew. Why did I not? “Did you like Jamaica?” I asked, though I remembered that he had said something in Maysbeck that had led me to think that he hadn’t.

  “It didn’t suit me. The people there are stupid, and they have stupid rules. It will be different for you, though.”

  “Why different for me?”

  “It just will be. It’s all set for you.”

  Without saying more, he led the filly out into the stable yard and she clopped across the cobblestones as if she were as anxious as he was to be off across the fields on such a bright and promising morning. As I watched him ride away, I wondered: did Carrot really like him so very much? Brothers, Carrot had said: was there something to Rowland that I did not understand? Or was it simply that he took the effort to court and charm a friend like Carrot who could benefit him, while I, the younger brother, had nothing to offer?

  I wandered back to the house and found the dining room still empty of guests, and a young maid just setting out the dishes. I nodded to her and she dipped a little curtsy and went about her business. We had a housekeeper and a cook and a scullery maid at the Wilsons’. And there had been Athena and North at Mr. Lincoln’s, and even Mrs. Clem had a housekeeper and someone to help her in the kitchen. But it had only been back all those years ago at Thornfield-Hall that there had been genuine servants around: a butler and a housekeeper and Cook and chambermaids. In those days I was only a child, with not much more status than a servant myself. So it was nearly a new thing to me to have people around to wait on me, to bow and curtsy at my nods, to provision me almost before I knew I needed provisioning. And I must admit that I found it quite comfortable.

  I took a plate and filled it with eggs and ham and fried potatoes and bread, and black pudding. It was to me a clear reminder of Thornfield-Hall and the breakfasts that Cook used to make, and I was just settling into it when Carrot entered the room and greeted me. “Up so early, Jam? Matthews tells me you have already been to the stables to see Rowland off.”

  “Yes, I was there. That’s a handsome filly he has.”

  “Indeed. He won the bid on her. I was after her as well. As was Willy, in fact. You should have been to that one. Jam, I was really sorry you didn’t come to the Derby. We could have…we could have had a marvelous time.”

  “I’m sorry as well,” I said. I wanted to say more, but there was no way Carrot could understand the childish jealousy I was feeling toward Rowland.

  “And I suppose you’ve never been to Newmarket, either. Well, we shall fix that. Next time. You must join us, if I have to come to Maysbeck myself and drag you there.”

  I laughed, the warmth of Carrot’s obvious affection spreading through me, Rowland for the moment forgotten.

  “So you and the lovely Miss Kent have a date this morning for a music lesson!” he said as he filled his plate.

  “We do,” I managed to say, despite that I was having second thoughts, fearful still of making a fool of myself in front of Rowland. Nevertheless, I determined I would not be intimidated. “She so kindly offered that it seemed uncouth not to accept,” I added.

  Carrot laughed again. “Uncouth. God knows, no one should be uncouth!” Then he leaned forward, closer. “Must you really leave tomorrow? You have only just gotten here.”

  “I warned it could only be a day or so.”

  “But, Jam, tomorrow? Do you know that Rowland is leaving tomorrow as well? Surely you won’t leave me on my own with these two girls? Whatever shall I do with them?”

  “I’m sorry, but I must go back,” I said. “I have responsibilities there.”

  He nodded, though I imagined he had no idea what a working life was like. “We have a lot behind us, you and I,” he said. “A lot of history. But now, tell me: what is your future?”

  That stopped me. I longed to be the determiner of my own fate, but, unlike Frank in Rob Roy, I hadn’t the courage—or the foolhardiness—to turn my back on what was being offered, and to strike out on my own. Carrot, I told myself, had also chosen the way that his father had given him. As had Rowland. But I was the second son and had to take the lesser portion, whatever it turned out to be. I hadn’t the vision for myself that Frank had, and now, only partway through the first book, one did not even know how it would turn out for him. “I don’t know for sure. It’s in Jamaica, I think,” I said.

  “But—Jamaica!—it’s the place you always dreamed of.” He beamed at me.

  “Yes, it is.” Though not as much as it used to be, I thought.

  “How soon will you go?”

  “I don’t know. Not soon, I’m sure. Actually, it’s in my father’s hands.”

  He put his hand on my arm. “I’m glad if your father has taken an interest in you. I remember—” He didn’t finish, but I knew he was thinking of all the years that his own father had not publicly claimed him.

  “And I remember your saying one must take the hand one is dealt,” I said.

  “Ah yes. And I have to admit that in the end I was dealt a fine one indeed. As you have been.”

  I stared at him for a moment. I? Dealt a fine hand? What was he thinking?

  “Jam,” he said, “what could have been better for a boy than the time we had at Black Hill? We were fed, were we not? And mos
t of the time we were warm enough. And the things we did! The siege engine we built, the blue face paint—what did he call that stuff?”

  “Woad.”

  “Yes: woad. And the weapons we fashioned, and reenacting the battles; what fun we had with all that! It was as if everything were a game. I have met many a man who would give his right arm to have had the time we had at Black Hill. There are so many worse places of education.”

  “I’ve never thought of it that way,” I said.

  “My God, Jam. It was heaven. And, now, look at you, the manager of a woolen mill! I could not imagine how to do the things you must do every day. Your father has done you well, hasn’t he?”

  “I suppose he has.” It was all I could think to say. Carrot saw my whole life so differently from how I did.

  He touched his finger to the side of his nose. “Trust me, Jam. Things usually turn out much better than one fears. And you will return for a visit. Soon.”

  Miss Kent came in just then, dressed in white muslin, her curls tied back with a blue ribbon. We both watched her cross to the sideboard and pour herself a cup of tea. “Up so early?” Carrot asked her.

  She laughed. “How can one sleep on such a lovely day! I’m hoping for an outing with the pony trap. We could take a picnic lunch.” She placed a dainty slice of ham, a single egg, and a piece of dry toast on her plate, and sat opposite me at the table.

  “I thought you two were doing music lessons today,” Carrot said, saving me the embarrassment of asking.

  “Well, yes, of course we are,” she said, smiling gaily at me. “But not all morning, I should think?”

  “Not at all. I’m not expecting to turn into another Farinelli,” I said, pleased with my ability to throw out the name of a famous opera singer.

  Miss Kent’s hand rose to her mouth and her face turned red, and at the same moment Carrot burst out laughing. “And thank God for that, is all I have to say,” he managed to get out between guffaws. Miss Kent grew redder as Carrot laughed, and she suddenly pushed back her chair, rose, and ran from the room.