I am not proud to say it, but those next few months proved a happier time for me. In Paris, I found a place in the Faubourg Saint-Germain—an apartment suitable to my station in life—and I hired a housekeeper and assigned her to find a cook and whatever else was needed. Since I would not be in residence there, I had reduced the number of Thornfield’s servants to a minimum, just enough to provide for Bertha and Grace, and I arranged for Ames to send regular reports on the estate and my business holdings.
I had at the time some vague idea of seeking out in Paris a good and intelligent woman who would be my companion, someone who, knowing my position with Bertha, would understand and love me anyway. I imagined that if I made myself known, sooner or later a suitable match would appear. To that end, I made the acquaintance of my neighbors: on the one side, a widowed woman of great class whose recently deceased husband had been a general under Bonaparte, with whom I hoped to enjoy conversation about that great military mind. But I soon learned that she recalled little. On the other side lived a vicomte and his wife, the vicomtesse, who was much younger than her husband and a perennial flirt. Through them, I became acquainted with the younger, fashionable set with whom Madame la Vicomtesse de Verteuil socialized.
With them, or occasionally by myself, I went to nightly entertainments: the opera, the ballet, the bouffons, and again a theater for a play or two. I went to fetes at the Prado and balls at the Odéon. With my new acquaintances, I learned to order the finest dishes and to drink vermouth and cassis, to speak about the finer points of an opera or ballet, to catch a woman’s eye and smile at her over the rim of my glass, and I learned, too, that if one has money enough there is no limit to what one may do. Perhaps this was the kind of life Rowland had sought, and I was enjoying it thoroughly. I stayed out most nights and slept through the mornings and half the afternoons, and on sunny days, paraded in my carriage on the Champs-Élysées, or I walked in the Jardin des Plantes with a woman on my arm. And again in the evenings I went to entertainments and gambled and danced.
I could enjoy myself in ways I had never imagined: I was talking politics and business with the men, and flirting and writing my name on women’s fans at balls and having affairs with one and then another. If all of that brought me no closer to the woman I had imagined meeting, I told myself it was no matter. In short, unlike at Thornfield, in Paris I felt free, and if my life there did not bear close inspection, it was certainly more enjoyable than remaining at Thornfield would have been.
One cold night in March I found myself standing in the Grand Foyer of the Paris Opéra, disappointed at the notice board announcing that Lise Noblet had taken ill and would not be performing the title role in La muette de Portici. I would have left the theater in disgust, for Noblet was an exquisite dancer and had already become a particular favorite of mine, but Monsieur Roget sidled up to me and said, “You must see this new dancer. She is a marvel.”
Roget was a man who made it his business to know all the performers at the Opéra. He held court every night at the Café d’Or after the performances, and if he said a dancer was worth watching, then she surely must be. So I stayed, having no alternate plan in mind, and I suppose I thought I could spend the evening critiquing her. Instead, however, from the moment the mute Fenella first appeared onstage I was entranced. She danced like a feather floating on air, her blond curls barely contained, her hands and feet as graceful as the wings of a butterfly. Watching her, I was mesmerized; I could not get enough of this petite marvel. The opera felt dull each time she left the stage.
On the one hand, I wished the evening would go on forever, and yet on the other I could barely wait until it was over, so anxious was I to find her in the Foyer de la Danse, where the dancers met with their admirers. I barely waited for the curtain calls, dashing down the stairs, running to buy camellias from a flower girl, hurrying to the foyer. I did not yet even know her name. I pushed myself as close as I could to the front of the waiting crowd, and when she finally appeared I shoved the others away until I stood right before her, and I placed the bouquet into her hands, kissing her fingers as I did so. Her face was as porcelain, lightest cream. She smiled at me and nodded at the flowers, and I placed my card into the bouquet before I was jostled away by another admirer and another, and when I turned back her arms were burdened with flowers, and all of them seemed more glorious than the ones I had given her. I left and walked back to my apartment in a spitting snow.
Despite my anticipation I heard nothing from the dancer—by then I had learned her name was Céline Varens—and the next evening Noblet returned to the stage. I attended anyway, searching the dance company for the luminous Varens, but did not see her. For days after that, I waited for a message from her, or for her name on another playbill or for any word at all of her, but there was none.
And then one day I was on my way to the Palais-Royal for a solitary stroll in its gardens. Solitary? You may wonder, and rightly, but sometimes I did so, for I am not ashamed to say that sometimes the best conversations one can have are with one’s own self, and that had more and more frequently become my situation. That day, the sun was warm on my back and the sky was blue and I could not have been more content in anyone’s company, when a carriage suddenly pulled up beside me, and the passenger inside opened the door.
Curious, and not a little annoyed, I imagined some acquaintance interrupting my reverie. But when I glanced inside, there was the golden nymph I had so wanted to see again: Céline Varens herself.
She smiled as I stepped inside, the aroma of her scent enveloping me—it was the fragrance of camellias. “I have been searching for you,” she said.
“And I you,” I responded, hardly able to breathe. “How did you find me?”
Rose-colored lips parted into a perfect smile. “Silly,” she said. “I found you walking toward the Palais-Royal. God must have sent you to me.”
No, I thought; he sent you to me. “But I gave you my card,” I said.
“There were so many cards, so many flowers.”
So many other men, I thought. But her dimpled smiles and her fluttering hands entranced me. “Where were you going just now?” I asked her.
“Silly,” she said again. “I was going to find you, since you did not find me.”
“But no one knew where you lived. I tried everything—”
“Ah, mon petit chouchou, you did not know where to look, did you?”
It came to me then: someone kept her—some man other than I, luckier than I—and I should not have been surprised. “Does he know what you do when you are not with him?” I asked.
She laughed lightly, and her hands took my face and drew it close and her lips met mine and her tongue came into my astonished mouth, and I could have ravished her there, right there, in her carriage, but she gently pushed away from me. “You are a gentleman, no?” she whispered.
“Of course I am.”
“You have another card, no?”
I drew a card from my pocket and she gazed at it, as if appraising me. “I will send for you,” she said, “and you will come?”
“Indeed, I will.”
She smiled again, her perfect lips, her perfect teeth, her little tongue. I could have stayed with her forever, but she motioned toward the door, and I understood and left her, though it was as if I had awakened from a dream. The carriage pulled away, leaving me in the roadside, watching.
Within a week, she sent for me twice. Her apartment was not far from mine, and I wondered that I had not been able to find her, that she had instead found me nearly by chance. I never knew the man who kept her there; he was a wealthy merchant of some sort who traveled often.
Céline was a delight. She was childlike without being childish; she was quicksilver; she could listen. She was not well educated, but it was clear she had an active, lively mind. Her merchant-lover was old, she said, emphasizing the word, and it soon became obvious that she was looking for someone younger, with whom she could attend the theater and balls. But we did not go anywhere tho
se first few times, perhaps because she was known to be attached and it would not have done for her to be seen with another man.
I was insanely jealous of her merchant, though I had no real cause. Although I could go to her only when he was away on business, when I was with her I was the center of her attention: I was in heaven. She sent for meals from a nearby café, and sometimes she fed me as if I were her child, and sometimes we ate together from the same plate, and sometimes the food grew cold while we made love.
Before autumn I had moved Céline out of the merchant’s apartment and into another that I provided for her. She had not wanted to move in with me, as I had hoped, and I could not force her, for I knew that in the world of Paris, one was lucky to have such a woman at all, under any circumstances, and that I was even more fortunate that an angel like her could give her heart to someone like me. When she danced, I went to her every performance, most often at the Opéra, but sometimes elsewhere. I installed a piano in her apartment and played for her while she danced for me. Sometimes she urged me to sing, and, flattered, I held her in my arms and sang love songs into her ear.
We ate dinners at our favorite restaurants and we often went to the theater or to a ball, but sometimes we stayed home by ourselves, which was my preference, though her choice would have been to go out every night. That was her life: to see and be seen in the most fashionable of company. I bought her things: the finest gowns of silk and cashmere, jewels for her lovely throat and arms and for her hair, even a full equipage, complete with matching horses and a coachman and footman, and she rewarded my gifts with love and attention, calling me her chouchou. I entreated her to call me by my given name, as no one ever had, but she pouted that Edward was a hard name—like feet stamping, she said—and instead whispered chouchou into my ear, licking my earlobe, giggling softly, her breath against my cheek. I could not deny her anything. Because her very name—Céline—meant heavenly, I called her ma petite ange.
Amid our bliss, I did not confide in her the burden I carried. I told myself it was because of fear that she would leave me, but that surely was not the full truth; in Paris, especially with Céline, I had simply found for myself a refuge where I could forget Bertha, and her long-lost child, and all that I had left at Thornfield-Hall.
Chapter 6
In Paris, there had been no need for me to return to England. Ames was a fine and trustworthy agent, and Grace Poole had never given reason for concern. I had long since given up hope of any reversal in Bertha’s condition, and because I had been unable to locate any further information on her son, it was enough now to know simply that she was safe and secure and receiving adequate care. She had even almost grown to appreciate Grace—as much as she could appreciate anything or anyone—and after the first few weeks she no longer tried to attack her caretaker, although she still could not be trusted to wander at will through Thornfield-Hall. But because she had always preferred dark and inclosed places, the third-floor apartment, with its hidden entrance, was a perfect sanctuary. No one came, save Grace, to disturb or anger her.
In early summer, however, I made a hurried trip back to Thornfield because Ames had written that Munroe had given notice. It came as no surprise, for without the master in residence, there was little need for a butler. There was still the cook, Mary, and her husband, John, who did whatever was required; and Leah, the parlor maid; and young Sam, the footman. All that was needed in addition was a housekeeper. I could have left the responsibility for hiring such a person to Ames, but the situation at Thornfield was delicate, and the personality of the housekeeper was crucial, so I returned, telling Céline I might be gone for a week or more.
Because Thornfield was rather remote, and a madwoman residing there made the place seem even more daunting, Ames had suggested that we not inform the new housekeeper of Bertha’s presence. How can we not? I wondered. The housekeeper has the run of the Hall, and the responsibility for it; how can she not know of its peculiar inhabitant?
But when I arrived, I discovered that Ames, who had lived in the neighborhood his entire life and knew nearly everyone, already had a plan. First, he voiced a strong concern that keeping servants would always be a problem, unless Bertha’s presence was a carefully guarded secret. He revealed to me that a distant relation lived nearby, a discreet and respected widow, Mrs. Fairfax by name.
The name caught me straightaway. “Fairfax?” I asked.
“Oh yes,” he said. “She would have been married to your mother’s second cousin. Caroline Fairfax Rochester, your mother was.”
The revelation stunned me. I had not known until then the provenance of my second name. “I was named for her,” I said. “Did you know my mother?”
“I never met her,” he said, “though I saw her a time or two when I was a boy. A lovely woman. And this Mrs. Fairfax is a widow of great reputation but with very little to live on. It would be of benefit to you both.”
“But she would be my relation! And you propose I not tell her of my wife? How could I do that?”
“You simply tell her—or I will, if you prefer—that Grace tends to private concerns of yours and is not to be interfered with. Stranger situations than that have happened in great houses such as Thornfield-Hall.”
“But—” I could not think what to say, except that it felt unseemly to keep such secrets.
“She is a proper woman and would be just right for what you require. There is no need for her to know all your family secrets,” he countered.
Perhaps I had become jaded in Paris, where, in the circles in which I lived, secrets more often than not were willfully flaunted. Every man, it seemed, had a mistress, and his wife, if he had one, ignored that blatant fact; and every woman, married or not, had her own dalliances, which were common knowledge to all.
Yet in England secrets are held close to the breast—the more dangerous the secret, the closer it is held. One may call such a state hypocrisy, and perhaps it is. But: “Hypocrisy is an homage vice pays to virtue,” La Rochefoucauld wrote, and there are few secrets as dangerous—or as shameful—as a mad wife.
Ames arranged for Mrs. Fairfax to come for an interview the very next day, and she seemed to me indeed the very epitome of rectitude and discretion. I could immediately see that she might well have balked at the knowledge of Bertha in the hidden apartment, as well as at the idea of working for a man who would keep his wife in such a state, especially while he lived like a will-o’-the-wisp abroad, and I was certainly of no mind to explain in detail my history or my choices.
I confidently offered her the job, but before our interview ended, I could not resist asking her if she had known my mother.
“Not well,” she answered, “for Mr. Fairfax and I married late, and your mother died young. But she was beautiful, an elegant lady, well regarded and the darling of the county. Yes, it was a pity she died so young that you never knew her.”
“But what was she like?” I pressed.
“As I say,” she replied, “I did not know her well; I only saw her a time or two. But I do know this: she was kind, and it was her kindness that made her beloved.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Fairfax,” I said, and she nodded to me and tightened her bonnet and left. But I hung on to those words and played them again in my head: She was kind.
* * *
After a disastrous and heartrending visit to Bertha, in which I perceived that her decline had become even more pronounced, I felt I was ready to fully commit myself to the new, happy life I had found in Paris. I could not wait to return to Paris, to Céline’s apartment, where, I imagined, she would fly into my arms and smother me with kisses. I spent nearly all my time on the return journey imagining the scene, working out the most romantic things to say. We would continue to live in Paris, where Céline had her dancing and her admirers, and I would, if necessary, return to England now and then. Perhaps the time would come when we could, as a change, go to Thornfield as well. Yes, I am ashamed to say, I imagined that too, though Bertha was of a hearty constitution and co
uld go on for decades. Decades—God, I thought, have mercy.
The coach horses could not travel fast enough, the ferry could not cut through the water fast enough, the horse I hired at the dockside could not gallop fast enough, to return me to my Céline. Evening was falling when I arrived at her apartment, where I was stunned by its silence, its emptiness. Even Annick, her maid, was not there. I hoped Céline would be returning soon, but of course life for Céline began in late afternoon and ended only when the last establishments closed, at three or four o’clock in the morning. There was no telling whom she was with.
After a few impatient moments, I laid my card on her toilette table and left the apartment and wandered the streets in a daze of disappointment. Where was she? I told myself she could be at tea or having her hair done, clinging desperately to the idea that she was mine, as I was already hers. As I walked, I found myself growing more and more anxious, angry even, that she had not been there waiting for me. Foolish man that I was, I still desired the world to revolve around me and my wishes.
But when I returned a few hours later, the apartment was still empty. Perhaps Céline was at a private party, I thought, and Annick had been given the evening off. I waited in her boudoir, breathing in her camellia scent, and after a time I opened the French doors and stepped out onto the balcony. The evening air was fresh, the moon shone full on the street, and the gaslight at the corner made a comforting glow. I sat there smoking and eating chocolate bonbons, imagining how it would be when Céline was my wife and we could spend quiet evenings by ourselves on summer nights like this, watching the carriages rolling past on their way to the opera.
One of those carriages drove up to the front of the hotel, and I recognized the equipage that had been my gift to Céline. I sat forward as the horses stopped, shaking their heads restlessly. My ange was dressed in a hooded cashmere cloak that I recognized as one I had gifted her, though it seemed too warm for a June night, and there was her tiny foot peeping out from under the skirt of her dress, as, with a light movement, she skipped down from the carriage. I rose, all smiles, ready to call out a greeting, when another figure emerged behind her. It was cloaked as well, but wearing a man’s spurred heel that rang on the pavement and the hat of a cavalry officer. He and Céline disappeared, passing under the porte cochère of the hotel.
Mr. Rochester Page 29