Mr. Rochester

by Sarah Shoemaker

  Standing on that shuddering rooftop, I called her name. She half turned and saw me. Calmly, despite the crackling flames that surrounded us both, she gave me a smile. I suppose I may have imagined it, but something in her eyes seemed clear, for once, as if for the first time in years, she knew what she was doing. She gave a cry and turned from me to the edge. I lunged for her, but was too late, and I could only watch as she disappeared from the roof like a great white bird taking flight. For a moment, in my delirium, and standing in the place where she had been, that freedom beckoned me as well.

  I did not see her hit the pavement, but I heard the cries of horror from the people below. Mary screamed out, “Sir!” and I knew that if I did not move I would follow Bertha to my death.

  I ran. Down the narrow, smoke-clouded steps to the third floor, through the flames that were already licking at the stairs to the second floor, down the gallery, where every room was now fully engulfed in fire, to the grand staircase, where suddenly I stopped. I knew I had no time for indecision, but there was one last thing I had to do. I ran back to the closet where I had hidden Jane’s drawings and my mother’s portrait. They kept slipping from my sweaty, trembling hands as I raced back to the staircase and dove, by force of will, through the flames that were swallowing my only route of escape.

  But I was a moment too late. Partway down, without warning, the staircase simply collapsed. I tumbled through the flames, losing my grip on the portraits as the edifice crumbled around me, searing my flesh. I lost all consciousness.

  * * *

  I might never have expected to awake, but awake I did, with a fierce pain all across my body. I was bandaged, even my face, and in a strange bed not my own. I must have stirred, for immediately a hand was placed gently on my shoulder. “Mr. Rochester,” a woman’s voice said.

  I tried to speak but made no sound. There were only soft murmurs in the room and the sound of a door opening and closing quietly, and a snuffling sound that I recognized immediately. Beneath my bandages I must have smiled. And then I fell again into a fog.

  When I awoke again, I recognized Carter’s voice. “Well, Rochester, you seem to have come through it.”

  “Fire,” I said, surprised at the weakness of my voice.

  “Fires of hell, I should say.” His voice was more jolly than usual; I suppose he thought he must cheer me up.

  “How long—?”

  “Two days. Two and a half. You have some nasty wounds.”

  “I was burned in the face?”

  “Not so much, actually. Mostly on your forehead. Will give you a kind of distinction, I imagine, when it has healed.”

  “But my eyes are covered.”

  “Ahh…yes,” he said.

  I said nothing at first, but clearly he was waiting for me to speak. “My eyes?”

  “You have lost one. The banister fell on top of you, damaging it beyond repair. The other…we shall see about that.”

  Blind, I thought. Blind! I took a breath. “And what else?”

  “Burns elsewhere. But not too serious.”

  “Is that all?”

  “You have had a very close brush with death, my friend. And you are only just now conscious. Why not take a bit of rest for a while?”

  “I have great pain in one hand, but no other feeling.”

  “That is to be expected. Why not rest now?” But I heard the hesitation in his voice.

  “Carter.”

  He spoke, but his voice sounded far off, as if I were hearing him in a dream. “You have lost a hand as well; I am sorry, but there was nothing I could do, it was so badly mangled in your fall. I don’t know if you clung to something and wrenched it all out of line, or if something fell on it and smashed it, or what may have happened. By the time I arrived they had pulled you from the fire to the paving stones outside.”

  “‘They’?”

  “Onlookers. I have no idea who. Perhaps John, or maybe not. The fire was seen for miles, and people came, for they knew it was Thornfield-Hall burning.”

  “Was anyone else hurt?”

  “None, thank God. You managed to save everyone. Except of course for—”

  “Bertha,” I said, remembering.

  “You were very lucky to survive,” he added.

  “Lucky,” I repeated. Now I had lost Thornfield as well as Jane. I turned my head away and said nothing more, and neither did he, and after a time I fell into sleep.

  * * *

  Blinded, I found the days a monotony. I learned I was in Carter’s own home, in the same room where he had cared for Richard Mason, that ungrateful wretch. That was a lifetime ago; back then Jane was within my reach and I treated her so callously, yet she loved me anyway. Now she was gone, and I did not deserve her back.

  Ames came after a few days, for, like it or not, I was still master of the estate and must guide its business. There was much to discuss in the light of events, and we had the first of many conversations regarding the state of Thornfield-Hall, as well as the inevitable disruption to the harvest that the fire had wrought, and the future of John and Mary and Leah and Sam, now that there was no house for them in which to live or work.

  When we had finished discussing business, he rose to leave, made a few steps to the door, and turned back. He didn’t sit down again, but stood beside the bed. “It appears there may have been another body in the rubble,” he said, his voice low.

  I was startled. “Carter told me no one else—”

  “I only just saw something this morning, sir, where a stray dog was nosing around the ruins. No one else has been informed, I don’t believe.”

  I felt a heaviness in my chest. “A man?” I asked him.

  “That was my impression, sir, from what I saw.”

  Gerald. “Have you asked Grace?” I asked.

  “Grace has disappeared,” he replied.

  I was silent for a time, thinking of Grace, thinking of the years she had spent with Bertha. It is never enough. “Ames,” I said then, “this is a delicate matter, on which I will require your utmost discretion.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please pay a visit to Everson and convey to him—and no one else—the news you have just given me. He will know what to do. Tell him to send news to America if he can locate the proper recipient. And tell him to withdraw funds from my account to arrange for a respectful, anonymous burial near Bertha’s grave.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ames repeated.

  When he had gone, I was left alone with my thoughts. Poor, mad Gerald. He must have succeeded, that night, in breaking into the house and sneaking to Bertha’s chamber, where…I did not dare think of what had happened then.

  * * *

  The time came when I was able to rise; although the bandages were still on my eyes, I learned to move about somewhat, always with a guide at hand, and Pilot padding softly near my feet. Because I was so little able to do anything, my thoughts often went to Jane. I missed her, and would never stop loving her, but I also understood that I would never have her. I had destroyed that chance.

  Though I often lost hope, I desperately wanted to believe that she was not dead. She had little worldly experience, but she was strong of heart and mind, and I felt certain she would find her way to the kind of life she deserved. I placed all my hopes on that certainty, for Jane deserved happiness and contentment. I could not provide it for her, so I prayed to God that she would find it on her own.

  Autumn fell into winter, and one day the bandages were removed from my eyes. I imagine that it could have happened sooner, but I think Carter was attempting to be kind, to delay the reality that my sight was gone for the rest of my life. I discovered that I could see faint light with my one good eye, and the occasional shape, but that was the extent of my vision. Carter had been wise, I suppose, for even though I should have been used to the idea, when the bandages came off I was so overwhelmed with misery that I begged Carter’s housekeeper, Priscilla, to hasten me back to my room and shut me in, alone.

  Carter came in som
etime later. “There is many a blind beggar who would give both his legs to be in your position,” he chided me.

  I lashed out. “Would he give his hand as well?”

  “You have money. You have a house at Ferndean, if you choose to live there until you find something more suitable. You have a friend in me. Everson, too, stands by you, as you know.”

  “You will not allow me to wallow in self-pity? Even for a day?”

  “Not even,” he said, almost laughing, and I heard the echo of Jane’s voice, for she would not have allowed it either. “You have much to be grateful for,” he added.

  “And much to regret.”

  Carter didn’t respond, and I lay there, knowing what he was doing, but refusing to be jarred from my self-pity. And then a thought of Jane came to me, and what she would say, and I sighed, and rose from the bed and sat on its edge, and he and I began to discuss what was in store for me. I asked him to send for Ames, and for Everson, and then I began, in earnest, to prepare for what was to be the rest of my life.

  * * *

  I moved to Ferndean Manor, hidden away in its wood of oak and pine. I imagined bluebells and wild garlic in abundance in the spring, though I had been there with Bertha and Molly and poor little Tiso in that long-off June, and I did not recall anything blooming. It was too shaded for sun to stream into the windows, except for winter, when the oaks were leafless. I would never see the sun anyway, but I would be able to feel it, once the trees had lost their leaves. Carter disapproved of the place, for he said it would be too damp and cold, even in the summer, but I rather liked it, for it gave me good reason to avoid company, and I felt it brought me closer to God.

  Ames was able to find places for Sam and Leah and the scullery maid and the stableboys. John and Mary came with me, the only people I needed, for she cooked and cleaned house and John did the heavier chores. And, of course, Pilot stayed with me, that faithful friend.

  I kept Mesrour, too, for a time. Though I could not ride, I loved to stroke his neck and feel the power and warmth of his presence. But he deserved a rider who let him race, and I was no longer that man. With a heavy heart, I sold him. I had the rest of my life to live with my regrets. Mesrour, and Jane, deserved better lives.

  That winter I sat as close to the fire as my chair would allow, and I began to doze away my days. At night my thoughts ran wild, not unlike poor Bertha’s used to do. Often I wondered what, exactly, had been the agreement between my father and Jonas Mason. Given time to think, I imagine that Jonas may have noticed, even back when she was only twelve or fourteen, the early signs of Bertha’s illness. He would have wanted her kept safe, and that would take either a husband or money, and Richard Mason could not have been depended upon. A husband—a dependable husband—would have seemed a good solution, and perhaps that was what he had seen in Rowland. But Rowland, despite having brought Bertha into maternity, wanted nothing to do with her, or Jamaica, for that matter. And perhaps my father, recognizing an opportunity to bring a much larger plantation into the family, offered his younger son as a replacement. It was not the first time he had maneuvered to do such a thing. Of course, there was that long wait for me to come of age and to have an education, but my father would have considered the investment worthwhile, never guessing that he would die young and Rowland even younger. From time to time, I wondered what would have become of me if I had refused to go to Jamaica, but I shall never know that, and, as Carrot was fond of saying: You have to play the cards you were dealt.

  Carter came often and tried to cheer me in his own way. Sometimes he read to me, though I was like as not to fall asleep as he did so. It was not that I had suddenly become an old man—I was still in my thirties—but the loss of my eyesight brought a lack of stimulation that I had not yet adjusted to. I could not escape the irony of my confinement there, in the same place where I had once tried to house my lunatic wife. I, too, was strong in body yet unable to care for myself, destined to live out a dreary life, trapped inside my own head.

  But my friends would not leave me to my sadness. With warmer weather, John began rousing me for walks around the grounds. There was no orchard, which I had loved so much at Thornfield, but John would guide me to bend down and touch snowdrops, and anemones, and finally reach up and feel the hazel catkins. The earth was coming to life and, as much as possible, I was too. Memories came with spring as well: last year’s hopeful days, my fireside banter with Jane, our walks in the orchard, the sound of her laugh. That life was gone: Thornfield-Hall a ruin, Bertha and Gerald dead, I a broken man. And Jane: pray God she was safe.

  * * *

  The day was cloudy, as despondent as my mood. For how many years, I wondered, would I be moldering away in these woods? That was my feeling all that day, a grief that knew no bounds. Even in the evening it did not lift, and I took myself to my room early, but could not sleep. That was just as well, for my nightmares had been worsening: I was vividly haunted by a lifetime of sin and regret. There were so many people, irretrievable now, who had been lost and wronged. Not just Bertha and Gerald, and Jane herself, but Touch and Carrot and Alma and little Tiso and Mr. Wilson and so many others who had suffered, whom I wish I might have saved. Sitting beside my opened window, feeling the air on my face, I imagined the moonlight, and Jane somewhere, laying herself down from a busy day. “Jane!” I called out suddenly. “Jane! Jane!” And then, more quietly, “Oh God, Jane.”

  I expected no answer—of course I did not. But, in my mind I thought I heard a voice: “I am coming,” it seemed to say, “wait for me.” And a moment later, as if the wind in the pines itself was speaking: “Where are you?” The sound of it echoed as if across the fells, though there were none near.

  “Here,” I said aloud. “Just here.”

  But there was no response, though I sat at the window for nearly an hour more. It was as if it had happened in a dream: Jane’s spirit and mine calling across some wild and lonely distance. I wanted to believe that it was a sign that God was setting me free.

  The next morning I arose as usual to the birdsongs, and again the next day and the next, but nothing in my life had changed. It seemed that God had not, after all, heard my prayer, or perhaps he had more misery in store for me.

  But on the fourth day, as darkness was starting to fall, I felt an urge to step outside on my own. Down the one step to the grass, cautiously. A step out. And then another, my hands outstretched for balance and because I knew there were trees even that close. As the first drops of rain descended I thought I heard a footstep, or a voice. “Who’s there?” I whispered, but no one responded. A woodland sprite, perhaps, waiting for me. If only it were real. The only sound I could hear was the wind in the trees, but I stood there anyway, for I felt a kind of comforting presence that I had not felt since coming to Ferndean.

  Just then I heard John’s voice coming from my side. “Will you take my arm, sir?” he said. “There’s a heavy shower coming on: had you not better go in?”

  “Let me alone,” I said impatiently, for I felt as if there were something just out of reach, and for a few moments I tried to walk toward it, as if I could find it and hold it in my hand, but it was useless, and finally I turned and made my way back into the house, feeling worse than I had before.

  I had only just returned to my chair when Mary came in. I thought at first she was bringing my tea, but instead she said, “Sir, there is someone asking to speak with you. What shall I tell them?”

  I was annoyed. It had been a difficult few days, and was growing worse. Besides, Mary knew I did not see strangers. “Who is it at this time of night?”

  “I—I did not ask a name, sir.”

  “Well, if he cannot give his name and his business, I certainly have no desire to see him. And bring me a glass of water. Please.”

  She hurried away, her shoes scuffing against the floor.

  When she returned, she had no more than entered the room before I heard Pilot scramble up from beside me with a soft yelp and leap upon her, splashing the water
. She whispered a quiet order. The commotion was so unlike Pilot—or Mary—that I turned toward the noise, straining. This damnable body!

  “Give me the water, Mary.” I sighed. But as I waited for the glass, I heard again Pilot’s excited paws on the floor. “What is the matter?” I asked, having begun to fear an intruder.

  Then came a voice that was not Mary’s: “Down, Pilot!”

  I knew that voice. But it could not be: I was hallucinating. “This is you, Mary, is it not?”

  “Mary is in the kitchen,” the voice said, and hope and fear clashed within me. Inadvertently I put out my hand, as if to touch the apparition, as if to assure myself she was real. Oh, that I still had my sight!

  “Who is this?” I demanded. “Who is this?” I half rose as if I could force an answer. “Answer me—speak again!”

  “Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilled half of what was in the glass,” came the calm reply.

  “Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?”

  “Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening.”

  Jane. Jane. I would know that voice anywhere—had heard it in my fever dreams for a year. But it could not be. “Great God!—what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?”

  “No delusion—no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.” It was she, for certain. The water she had brought me, the water I held in my hand: that was real. How then could she be a dream?

  I cried out and reached to touch her, and I felt her small fingers encircling mine. “Her very fingers!” I cried out. “Her small, slight fingers! If so, there must be more of her.” I reached for the rest of her, seeking the form I knew so well in my heart. I wrapped my arm around her waist and drew her close. My heart pounded in my chest, and as I brought her ever closer I could feel hers as well.