My Mr. Rochester 1 (Jane Eyre Retold)

by Rigel, LK

  Hamlet 1-3-78

  I set the book down and drew my knees to my chest, mulling the inscription over. Hamlet 1-3-78. It must be a topographical reference, but Cambridge was far larger than a hamlet. A town, at least. A city, I thought. Anyway, a pox on whoever defaced such a beautiful book!

  With my arms wrapped around my legs, I leaned against the cold windowpane and watched the rain fall silently on the world outside. Leaves fluttered and bent and popped up again, gathering and dropping the small weight of raindrops.

  In the ivy that clung to the window’s Juliet railing, two tiny brown sparrows sheltered from the weather. One tilted his little head inquisitively, and I wished for my drawing pad and charcoal pencils. I tried to capture his features in my memory.

  The library door opened.

  “Ha! Madam Mope, I’ve got you!” John Reed cried, as if he’d pounced upon the object of his search—me. He paused, having found the room empty. “I know you’re in here, Jane Eyre. The choker’s gone, and I’ll seek until I find.”

  Choker. John Reed and his friends called all clergymen chokers after the white cravats tied so tightly in fanciful knots around their necks.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  If only Mrs. Reed could once overhear her darling boy’s foul swears.

  “Eliza!” he called out. “Jane isn’t here. Tell mother she’s run out into the rain. She’s in trouble.”

  I closed my eyes and thanked my guardian angel for giving me the presence of mind to close the curtain. I prayed John wouldn’t find me. That I wouldn’t hiccup involuntarily.

  “She’s in the window seat. I’m sure of it.” Eliza came into the room in answer to John’s call. “She’s always there.”

  I’d give him no satisfaction of discovery and no opportunity to drag me out. I threw back the curtain and stepped down to the floor. “What do you want?” Though my heart raced a hundred miles a minute, I tried to affect utter indifference.

  “Say: what do you want, Master Reed.” He sat in the armchair by the unlit fireplace and pointed at the floor. “I want you to come here, and bring that book.”

  Bile rose in my throat. By accident of birth, I was expected to submit to this bully? “No.”

  Eliza gasped.

  “Come here, charity case,” John Reed said. “I don’t think you understand the precarious nature of your position.”

  I laughed. “Do you even know what that means? You’re repeating something you read in a book.”

  “Jane, do be careful,” Eliza said.

  She was right. I had no defense against him. He’d bamboozled his mother, and there was nothing anyone could do to correct him. The servants were terrified of him. I was too, but my contempt ran deeper than my terror.

  He held out his hand, palm up, as if he really expected me to give him my book.

  “It wasn’t Georgiana’s to give,” he said. “You know that, Jane. All the wealth of Gateshead flows from me. You have no business accepting this book. You’re my dependent. You have no money. Your father left you nothing. You ought to work in a factory or beg on the streets of a town before you live in this fine house with an anointed’s children. I can’t believe my mother lets you eat at the same table with us. All your fine clothes are at my expense.”

  “Mrs. Reed buys my clothes.”

  “From my inheritance. I'll teach you. Go face the wall, away from the windows.”

  I glanced at the wall, but I didn’t move.

  “In three months, I’ll be eighteen. Do you know what that means, Jane Eyre? My trustee will be gone, and things will change. All will be done according to my will. My mother’s good nature will protect you no longer. And if you persist in modeling such an evil example to my innocent sister, you’ll force me to have you removed to the workhouse.”

  “John!” Eliza said.

  “However reluctantly,” he added. He turned his palm downward and pointed to the spot he’d indicated before. “Now come here, Jane.”

  “No.”

  “You impudent girl!” Mrs. Reed was there in the center of the library. I never saw her come in. She was enraged and blundering toward me, her eyes bulging like a caricature of a human being. “You ingrate! You Lilith! You Jezebel!”

  She raised her hand to strike, and I raised the atlas as a shield. She stole it away from me, crying aha!

  Mrs. Reed ran to John and I chased after her. He grabbed the book and held it over my head, taunting me as I’d known he would if he got the chance. I charged at him and beat his chest with my fists.

  “Help!” he cried. “She’s a wild animal!”

  “Take her away,” Mrs. Reed told the servants, for Bessie and Abbot had come to see what all the noise was about. “Take her to the Red Room and secure her there.”

  Four hands immediately seized me.

  John Reed crowed triumphantly, my beautiful atlas clutched in his fat, teacake-smudged hands.

  “No!” I screamed. “Not the Red Room. I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  But Bessie and Abbot were strong working women, and I was a frail girl. Though I kicked and twisted, I was swept off my feet, helpless, and borne away.

  “Not the Red Room!” I cried. “It’s not fair! Oh, it’s so not fair!”

  « Chapter 3 »

  The Red Room

  Bessie let go of one of my legs, and my heel struck the hardwood floor.

  “Ouch!”

  She opened the door to the Red Room and dropped the chatelaine back into her apron pocket. She and Abbot dragged me over the threshold and flung me onto a hard-backed chair placed on the wood floor beyond the red Persian carpet. I immediately lunged forward, headed for the door.

  “Stop now, Miss Jane.” Bessie grabbed me. “Don’t make us treat you harsher than need be.”

  “Harsh is exactly what needs be with this one,” Abbot said.

  I lunged again. They caught me again. I kicked Abbot in the shin.

  “I’ll take down the bed stays,” she said. “We’ll have to truss her to the chair.”

  “No, don’t! For God’s sake, have pity.” I broke down in tears, my shoulders shaking with my sobs.

  Bessie sat on my lap to hold me on the chair while Abbot collected what cords she could find.

  “For shame,” Abbot said. “You’re the one who should have pity.” She tied my ankles to the chair legs and removed my shoes, tossing them away to the corner. “What shocking conduct, Jane Eyre, to strike the young gentleman, your master.”

  “Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?”

  “You’re less than a servant.” Abbot yanked my arms behind the back of the chair and bound my wrists together. Bessie stood up then. She did nothing to prevent Abbot from tying a cord around my waist to the chair to bind me more securely. “You do nothing to earn your keep,” Abbot continued. “Sit there now and think about your wickedness.”

  “Do you think I’m wicked?” I asked Bessie.

  She looked down at her hands then at Abbot. “She’s never been wicked before.” At last somewhat of a defense, but too late. I was immobilized.

  “It was always in her,” Abbot said. “I’ve told madam my opinion, and she agrees with me.”

  “You’re just mad because Georgiana went away and didn’t take you with her,” I said. “It’s not my fault you’re a housemaid now. Don’t take it out on me.”

  Abbot’s face reddened, but I wasn’t sorry for saying it.

  “You ought to be mindful, Miss Jane,” Bessie said. “Think of your obligation to Mrs. Reed. She keeps you in kindness. If she were to turn you out, you’d have to go to the workhouse just as Master Reed said.”

  I could say nothing. The words weren’t new to me. I’d heard similar whisperings all my days. This litany of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear, painful and soul-crushing.

  Abbot joined in. “And don’t think yourself equal in rank with the Reeds, even if you are above me and Bessie. Mrs. Reed kindly allows you to be brought up with her child
ren, but they will have a great deal of money, and you will have none. You should be humble. You should try to make yourself agreeable to them.”

  “We tell you this for your good.” Bessie’s voice softened. “If you were useful and pleasant, you’d have a home here all your days. But if you’re passionate and rude, you’ll be sent away. I’m sure of it.”

  “Good,” I said. I thought of how rudely John Reed had spoken to me, how he’d taunted me and hurt me all my life. I might be poor and plain and insignificant, but I was a human being. The prospect of living out my life in this cruel manner, with people who hated me, was insufferable. “I desire it above all things.”

  I wished I could be sent to Millcote—to my Hamlet 1-3-78.

  “You don’t mean that, Miss Jane,” Bessie said.

  “Never mind,” said Abbot. “God will punish you. He might strike you dead in the midst of a tantrum, and then where would you go? To the pit of everlasting fire.”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  I hadn’t thought of ever dying. Which was odd, considering how so many had died all around me.

  “Come, Bessie,” Abbot said. “Let’s leave her. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre. Repent.”

  They left. I started to be nervous when Abbot popped her head in for one last piece of advice. “Repent or something bad might come down the chimney and fetch you away.”

  “No, no,” I said. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone.”

  The key turned in the lock, and I was alone in the Red Room. Couldn’t they hear my beating heart? I wanted to run to the door and pound on it, but I was tied to the chair.

  Abbot’s last admonition rang in my ear, and I glanced at the fireplace. All my fancied bravery slipped away. The cold hearth was quite large. I could fit in it. Something could come down the chimney and fetch me away.

  It struck me then that I’d been entirely obtuse in my relationship with God. If brutally honest, I had to admit I’d offended more than pleased him.

  But it wasn’t my fault! I never meant to insult God, but only to rail against injustice. I had believed the world and heaven too loved justice. I suddenly saw all with new eyes.

  I looked around at my prison, a square bedchamber, the largest and stateliest in the mansion but never slept in. The bed’s massive mahogany pillars were hung with deep red damask curtains, now hanging loose for lack of binders. The bed stood in the room’s center like the stage of a theater in the round.

  It was a corner room. Red curtains shrouded four large windows in two walls. The Persian carpet had a red, burgundy, and maroon design. The cedar trunk at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth. The wallpaper was a soft pink blush color. The wardrobe, dressing table and upholstered chairs were of dark polished mahogany.

  The room was cold. There was never a fire here, and the natural gas vents used in the morning room (and, I suspected, in the Reeds’ bedrooms) on the bleakest days of winter were never opened here. The housemaids came only on Saturdays to dust and clean the mirrors and interior windows.

  I started to go a little crazy, convinced a ghost or some sort of specter watched me from under the barren fireplace grate. I very nearly swooned. I made myself recall the time I’d secretly followed Mrs. Reed when she came in here. She’d survived the experience, and I had too.

  I’d tracked her so quietly, half terrified she’d turn and discover me and half thrilled by the adventure. She unlocked a drawer in the wardrobe and rifled through several rolled-up parchments then withdrew her jewelry box and a miniature of her deceased husband, my dear uncle (with all my heart I believe he was dear).

  And that’s why the Red Room was so terrifying to me. That great bed, center stage, was my uncle’s deathbed. There he died. There he lay in state. For some reason, it had taken Mrs. Reed three days to find an undertaker to bring a coffin and bear away the body.

  The Red Room was a chamber of death and sorrow.

  Something did move beneath the grate. It couldn’t be smoke—more likely the wisp of a dark spirit.

  I strained against my bonds to no joy. John Reed’s violent tyranny, his mother’s aversion to me, the servants’ partiality—all the insults of my days grew in my disturbed mind, a pile of resentments I’d been long collecting.

  Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, forever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to even try to win anyone’s favor?

  John Reed was the cruel one, and I was tied here to this chair. “Unjust! Unjust!” said reason within me. Send me to the workhouse, I thought. Anything would be better than this.

  I was out of harmony at Gateshead. I was nobody. I might as well not exist. I had nothing in common with Mrs. Reed or her children. They did not love me. I did not love them. How could they feel affection for a Jezebel, as Mrs. Reed had so uncaringly called me?

  The key turned in the lock, and Bessie came through the door. Hurray! She’d taken pity and had come to free me.

  But no. John Reed was on her heels. He pushed past her and came directly at me, and I thought how his appearance, disgusting and ugly, so keenly matched his inner core.

  As if he read the review on my face, all at once he struck me. The room spun, and Bessie shrank against the door.

  “That was for speaking back to my mother,” he said.

  He hit me again before I could regain my equilibrium. “And that was for your sneaky way of getting behind curtains.”

  Again. “And that for the look in your eye just now, you rat!”

  A warm, salty taste filled my mouth. I looked down and saw blood on my white dress.

  “What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked.

  “Reading.”

  “I don’t believe you. My mother was right. You’re a Jezebel. You’re a wanton. You were doing nasty things in there. Looking at yourself. Touching yourself.”

  What was he talking about?

  “Master Reed!” Bessie exclaimed.

  Her utter shock stopped him a moment, as if he just took notice there was someone else in the room, witness to his manic ravings. “Get out.” His voice was like ice.

  “But Master Reed, should you…” Bessie’s protest faded. She withered under his glare and did as she was told.

  I was alone with the monster, and immobilized. He walked over to the corner, kicked my shoes away and pulled back the curtain. He stared out at the world, and I could see the wheels spinning in his brain. He turned back to me, his lip curled slightly as it did when he embarked on some new tease of his little sister or torture of an insect he’d caught.

  “What are we to do with you, Jane Eyre?”

  My hatred turned to fear. Instinctively, I strained against my bonds until the ropes burned my wrists and ankles.

  “My aunt—”

  “Never call my mother that!” He screamed at me.

  Pain seared into my cheek. The room tilted again. He slapped me so hard! I wasn’t breathing, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it.

  “She is Mrs. Reed to you, and you should thank God every day she had the kindness to take you in and keep you off the streets.”

  I choked and sputtered, desperately dragging air back into my lungs, as John Reed paced back and forth.

  “Now Jane, you must never mind about that book.” His tone modulated, and his false reasonableness made my blood run cold. “I’m sure Georgiana’s motives were sincere and pure. She has no appreciation of your inherent wickedness. But no matter. I’ve taken care of it.”

  “What? What have you done?”

  “It’s gone,” he said. “The atlas. If you must know, I’ve burnt it.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “It’s in the kitchen ovens. They’re baking bread just now, and the flames are good and hot.”

  “Oh, John Reed, I hate you. I hate you so!”

  His hand was raised, poised to slam once again across my jaw. I closed my eyes and braced for the blow. But it didn’t come. Instead, his war
m fat hand rested softly against my cheek.

  “Oh, Jane,” he said. “Jane.”

  Thick and moist lips pressed against mine. As my eyes popped open in shock, his tongue thrust into my mouth. I jerked my head back, repulsed.

  “Jane.” He said my name urgently. “I'm sorry. I’m sorry about what I said before. I don’t think you’re plain.” He moaned with such agony, you’d think he was the tortured one. My heart raced with disgust and fear. He kissed me again, and his hand moved from my cheek to my throat.

  He let go my throat and I relaxed slightly as he gripped my shoulder, but then his hand slid down to my breast and he squeezed me hard. Bessie’s lecture on womanhood crowded into my brain.

  I screamed. Not in pain. Not in shock.

  I screamed in abject terror.

  I screamed the world down to our feet. I screamed all the red of the Red Room into a swirling ball of rage and screamed that rage into John Reed’s fat face. The door flew open and I saw his backside lumber away as he fled. The chair I was bound to tipped, and the hardwood floor came rushing toward my face.

  « Chapter 4 »

  Brocklehurst

  It felt like coming out of a nightmare. Someone lifted me to a sitting position and propped me against my pillows. I was in my bedroom, dressed in my nightgown. It was daylight, but I couldn’t tell if it was morning or well into afternoon.

  On one side of my bed Bessie watched me anxiously. I turned my face away, unwilling to accept her false show of concern after she abandoned me to that monster John Reed.

  The gentleman who’d lifted me hovered over me, examining my eyes, and I felt a rush of relief. A stranger in the house, guarantor of safety and civil treatment. Not truly a stranger—I knew who he was—but someone not belonging to Gateshead Righteous, and therefore not Mrs. Reed’s creature.

  Or John Reed’s creature either. I had to consider that now.

  “Well, do you know who I am?” the man asked.

  “Dr. Lloyd,” I said, and he smiled at my correct answer. “But why are you here, sir?”

  A dull ache nagged at my right temple, and my wrists and ankles were sore, but I couldn’t imagine Mrs. Reed calling in a doctor. She’d never called one for countless other wounds and scrapes I’d suffered under her guardianship.