My Mr. Rochester 1 (Jane Eyre Retold)

by Rigel, LK

  A sense of claustrophobia came over me. I was so different from these women, yet in that moment I saw my future: bit by bit and with each passing year, I would chip away at my sharp edges. I would modify myself to fit in. I would become less like myself and more like them.

  Despite my purple dress with its low neckline and a mind that once read scandalous books.

  I turned down Miss Miller’s invitation to go with her and Miss Roy to the bookshop. It felt good to get out of the inn and go my own way. Anyway, today I had a plan. I meant to splurge, not on candies or paints. My salary had been raised, and I’d kept out half my quarterly $500 to spend on a pair of custom-made boots at the cordwainer.

  Blackstone’s felt more like someone’s parlor than a place of business, but for the display samples on the wall. While I waited for Mr. Blackstone, my gaze went straight to a pair of black leather knee-high lace-up boots.

  I couldn’t help myself. I lifted a boot from its stand, caressed the leather and inhaled its rich smell. The interior was lined with soft, soft microfiber. How warm the boots must be!

  “Will I measure you for a pair then?” said a deep voice behind me just as I became aware of a masculine presence at my back. I turned around, but the gray hair and twinkling blue eyes I expected weren’t there.

  I caught my breath. My eyes were level with a young man’s broad chest. He wore a dark forest green cotton shirt with the long sleeves partly pushed up exposing muscular forearms. The shirt buttons were open to his breastbone. He had the scent of a man who’d been working physically. My heart raced, and my breathing was shallow.

  I looked up to the amused expression of a man not much older than myself. He had large dark eyes and thick eyebrows, wonderful cheekbones, a square jaw, and full lips. He brushed his loose brown hair off his face and smiled.

  “You did come in for shoes, miss?” His voice was like a dream, deep and rumbling. I wanted to answer, but I’d forgotten how to speak.

  “Where is Mr. Blackstone?” I finally managed to get out.

  “My dad’s not feeling well today, I’m afraid. But I can help you. I’m Gideon.”

  “You were away.” I grabbed on to a piece of intelligence I’d heard in the kitchen about Mr. Blackstone’s son. “On border duty.” Having a topic of conversation brought me back to my senses. Gideon Blackstone was the current fascinating thing in the gossip factory known as the Lowood kitchen. The descriptions of his beauty hadn’t come close.

  “You’ll love this boot,” he said. He took me by the elbow and led me to an overstuffed chair by the fire. I’d never been touched like that before, not with kindness. Not by a man near my age. Not by a prince in a fairy tale. Pulling a stool close to my chair, he sat down in front of me and lifted the skirt of my dress over my knees.

  “What are—”

  “To fit you, miss.” He spoke matter-of-factly and went about his business. An ember on the fire snapped as he slipped off my shoes. His hands were nearly as large as my feet. He left my stockings alone—I didn't know if I was grateful or disappointed.

  “Was the border awful?” I could hardly believe this was happening. “Did you have to…” Good lord, Jane! I very nearly broke the unspoken commandment: Never ask about the border.

  Of course he might have had to kill someone. At the very least, he’d caught runners who’d be sent off to hard labor in the hellish factory farms of Carolina or worse, to clean contaminants along the dead zone of the Keystone spill.

  “I’ll be right back.” He let my foot down gently and fetched his tools. He sat down again as I stuffed my dress between my legs, and his mouth twitched with a smile. “A deep purple boot would look well with that dress, miss.”

  But not much else. “I’d like black, please.” I didn’t say I could afford only one pair which had to go with everything. “I think it’s wonderful that you went for citizenship,” I said. “Your father must be proud.”

  To earn full citizenship and secure voting rights, a young man not joined to a Righteous Household or Estate had to serve two years in the New Judean militia. If he was lucky, he’d be garrisoned in the interior, risking nothing more than a pulled muscle while drilling for war with the United States that everyone knew would never come.

  The unlucky ones got border patrol.

  “My father didn’t want me to go,” he said. “Didn’t think it was worth it.”

  Before I could be shocked by the idea, he lifted my left foot firmly in one hand and ran the other down my calf. Oh! Butterflies flitted across my stomach…and I felt hot in other places.

  He measured my feet, the diameter of each calf, the lengths from my heels to just below the backs of my knees.

  “Perfect,” he said. “It will be a pleasure to boot you.” He wrote in his order book, still holding my foot absently in one hand. Then he closed his book and touched my knee. He ran his fingers over the top of my thigh and leaned forward. His eyes were so deep and beautiful, and against my will my lips parted.

  I trembled as he kissed me, so strong and so soft at the same time. His tongue pushed in, and I didn’t mind. Far from it. I liked the way he made me feel, even as it frightened me. I pushed him away.

  “Mr. Blackstone.”

  “Call me Gideon,” he said. “You’re so lovely.”

  He moved to kiss me again, but I regained my senses.

  “Mr. Blackstone, don’t tease me. I know I’m not pretty.”

  “Aye.” He agreed readily and sat back on his heels. I felt like a fool. “You’re no flower. But don’t sell yourself short, Miss Eyre.” He leaned close to my ear, and his voice was husky and low. “There’s a spark inside you I’d love to blow into a roaring blaze.”

  I snatched up my purse and slipped into my shoes. As I hurried away, scandalized by my own actions, Gideon Blackstone’s laugh echoed behind me. At the door the magical bells jingled as he called out, “Your boots will be ready next Thursday.”

  That was the day I woke up. Back at Lowood, it struck me: teaching there wasn’t far different from being a student. I was in a play on a never-ending run, the same actor cast in different roles. Jane Eyre as student. Jane Eyre as teacher. In the future perhaps Jane Eyre as superintendent—with a lover from the village she thought she kept hidden but was fodder for the kitchen’s gossip.

  It didn’t have to be like this. I was not some puppeteer’s marionette. I had agency. I was a free human being. I had a marketable skill. I could break free. Go into the world. Teach in a different school.

  I advertised my services—and received one answer.

  « Chapter 10 »

  The News From Gateshead

  A few weeks later after my last class ended, Miss Miller summoned me to the superintendent’s cottage. She handed me an elegant fawn brown envelope of heavy linen stock post marked from the state of Jefferson, addressed to J. Eyre, Lowood Righteous Institution, Lowton, Idaho.

  My heart raced as I opened it and read the letter inside. “It’s from a Mrs. Fairfax at Thornfield Righteous Estate,” I said. “In Millcote County, Jefferson.”

  Millcote. I’d never forgotten the name. My true home, my soul’s home. Where my guardian angel had guided my hand that day in the library window seat. It was a sign! I’d taken the right course.

  “But who do you know in Jefferson?” Miss Miller said. “Who do you know anywhere?”

  Exactly, I thought. “She’s offered me a position teaching her daughter.” I stared at the word governess but couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “What an idea!” Miss Miller chuckled, as if the offer was an insult. “Homeschooling would hardly suit.”

  “I think it would suit me very well.” I showed her the letter. “The pay is double what I receive from Lowood.”

  She read thoroughly—or I should say she stared at the page for a while. “I’ll miss you, Jane,” she said finally, and I was surprised by her truly sad expression. “I’ll write to Mrs. Reed this afternoon.”

  What? “What has she to do with it?”r />
  “You’re not twenty-one,” Miss Miller said. “You can’t change employment without your guardian’s approval—and you certainly can’t move to another state without it.”

  So unfair! For two years, I’d earned my own living, and now I had to ask permission? All my hope came crashing down. Mrs. Reed would never agree to anything if it would make me happy. For five years, I’d had no contact with her. All my vacations were spent at Lowood. She’d never visited me. I’d had no letter or message from anyone at Gateshead.

  In fact, aside from the occasional walk to Lowton, I’d had no real interaction with the outer world.

  I had to get out, away from Lowood—more to the point, away from Gideon Blackstone. Dread crept over me and took hold. It would be two years before I was twenty-one. Two years before I could try again. I couldn’t deny Gideon for two years. I had the presence of mind to know I didn’t love him. The feelings he’d sent coursing through my body were pure lust. But they were real, and they were too strong to fight.

  “Please do, Miss Miller.” I was desperate. “Send a request to Gateshead.”

  I spent a nerve-addled ten days before the curt answer came, scrawled on a postcard: Jane Eyre could do as she pleased. Mrs. Reed had no further interest in her whatsoever.

  To compound the surprise, Bishop Brocklehurst wrote a more than adequate separation review with the post script that I was welcome to return to Lowood should I ever leave Mrs. Fairfax’s employ.

  Miss Miller got over her sorrow. Now she was delighted for me. She prattled on about my coming adventure more than I did.

  “You must have some decent dresses made. Thank goodness you ordered those boots, and I thought them lavish. A Righteous Estate in Jefferson! It must be grand. You can’t wear your teacher’s dresses there, even as an LPI.”

  She couldn’t say governess either. Oh, no. Jane Eyre was going out to be a Licensed Private Instructor.

  “I can’t afford a new wardrobe.”

  “Nonsense, you’ve had two years’ salary,” she said.

  “I’ve saved little more than $300,” I said.

  “But you never go anywhere. Aside from those boots and your shawl, you’ve shown no extravagance. What could you spend your money on?”

  I shook my head, laughing inside. She had no idea how meagerly the Board supplied Lowood’s teachers. After room and board were deducted, an art teacher could spend three times the balance on paints and brushes, charcoals and canvases and easels. One new “best” dress would have to do, and I bought a new cloak—and one extravagance I told no one else about.

  When I went to Lowton for the cloak, I stepped into the bookshop. I was the only customer in the store, and as I headed toward what Miss Scatcherd had called the witchcraft section, Mrs. Dean said hello.

  I had wanted to know her better. She wasn’t much older than me, and I’d love to know about life in the United States. I wondered where her husband was. Now I would never know.

  The Rowling books were there, and above them a handwritten notice: Anointed Elder Approved. I smiled and ran my fingers over the spines. Then my heart sank. On the shelf below was an empty space in place of the three books I’d come for—books forbidden at Lowood.

  The trilogy was among the volumes locked up in the Red Room, and I’d been thrilled to see that Mrs. Dean carried them. My coming train journey would give the perfect opportunity to read them at last. But they were gone.

  Jane, you fool. I had stared at them longingly at least three times before, and every time I’d walked away.

  “Are you looking for His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman?” Mrs. Dean joined me.

  “I guess I missed my chance,” I said. “Another customer was braver.”

  “Censorship makes cowards of us all.” Her eyes sparkled. “Come with me.” She led me behind the counter and through a door to a store room.

  “Oh!”

  Boxes and stacks of books filled the room, and it dawned on me that the books I wanted weren’t the only ones missing from the shelves in the store. Something had seemed off when I entered the shop, but I was so intent on myself I’d missed it.

  “Are you leaving Lowton?” I asked.

  “Yep.” She went through a stack on the floor. “Back to Washington. I can’t take it here. I thought I wanted the slower life of New Judah, but no. I can live without television, but the lack of communication and no internet is driving me crazy.”

  She found the three books and handed them to me: Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.

  “How wonderful.” I hugged them to my chest. “The books, I mean. I’m sorry our pace of life doesn’t suit you.”

  It was one of the things the Secessionists fought for. Along with the right to our religious freedom, the New Patriots also won our freedom from the constant bombardment of images and propaganda—information overload, they called it—that made a righteous and serene life nearly impossible.

  “The slow pace suits me fine,” Mrs. Dean said. “It’s the slow minds I can’t stand.”

  I bristled, but said nothing. Another freedom Secession gave us all: no need to argue. The heathens had their country, and we had ours. “I’m sorry you’re losing your lovely store, though.”

  “I’ll be all right,” she said. We went out to the counter where I paid for the books. “I’ll open a new one in Seattle. Brocklehurst paid a great deal for the shop.”

  “The bishop?”

  “His daughter and new son-in-law want to run it.” She motioned over her shoulder toward the stockroom and laughed. “He turned down most of the stock. His loss.” She wrapped the trilogy in brown paper and handed it to me.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Dean.”

  “It isn’t Mrs. Dean,” she said. “Not Mrs., anyway. I’m not married.”

  “But…” Goodness. What would Miss Miller say? What would Miss Scatcherd say?

  “I wonder how you Judeans get the courage to marry at all with no divorce allowed.”

  “Marriage is a sacrament of God,” I said. “It can’t be rent asunder by man.”

  “Amazing.” She seemed amused, as if I’d said something childish. “When I was preparing to take over my grandfather’s store, his lawyer told me no one in Lowton would accept a single woman as anything but nurse, teacher, or secretary. I didn’t believe him. I thought it must be one of those things people just give lip service to, but he was right.”

  I walked back to Lowood, partly shocked that not-Mrs. Dean had lied to everyone, partly admiring her cleverness, and completely mystified by her statements. She didn’t understand.

  The Edicts, Decrees, and Laws protected the weak in society. Gone were the days of divorce when men cast their wives aside for younger partners. I was grateful that Mrs. Reed was bound by her oath to raise and educate the helpless infant she despised. In the United States, I would have been sent to an orphanage. Of course I wished Mrs. Reed had brought kindness to her task, but love is beyond legislation.

  Like a bookend, the cart boy who’d delivered me from Lowood Halt to the institution’s gate returned me to the train in his one-horse conveyance. Five years hadn’t worn well on him. He seemed down in spirits, all business and no talk. This time he didn’t offer to come to me the back way.

  At dusk the train passed through the factory city, its buildings lit up inside and out, factories and barracks alike. I didn’t think it wonderful this time. This time I understood fluorescent light, and I was better aware of factory workers’ lives. Brocklehurst regularly threatened to ship Lowood’s kitchen staff or gardeners off to a factory.

  Factory work was how those in the poorhouse earned their keep, all the daylight hours spent on their feet at assembly lines or bent over sewing machines drenched in that damned fluorescent light. The life was hard. But all life is hard if your father isn’t a bishop or lord or Anointed Elder. I pitied the factory workers not for their hard labor but for the constant glare of those lights.

  I’d celebrated the day I left the student
dormitory for a teacher’s apartment. I still had to share a bedroom, and with Miss Gryce who snored, but we had the luxury of oil lamps and candlelight.

  I had a stopover at Gateshead Halt to wait for the California Transcontinental Zephyr, the train which ran from Chicago in the United States through the western regions of New Judah and on to the west coast. The station had expanded. There was now a café, busy with people waiting for the Zephyr, and I ordered something to eat. The coffee was strong, but nothing cream couldn’t fix. I’d just finished a bowl of chicken soup when a familiar person approached my table.

  “Miss Jane, is it you? Don’t say you’ve forgotten your old friend.”

  “Bessie!” I jumped up and threw my arms around Gateshead’s housekeeper. “I could never forget you.”

  “Why, you’re all grown up,” she said. “Not a beauty, but we didn’t expect that. Still, you’re quite a young lady.”

  “It’s wonderful to see you.” Bessie looked much prettier than I remembered, but I couldn’t bring myself to say so after so blunt a reminder of my plain looks. “Will you join me? Why are you here?”

  “Why to see you, Miss Jane.”

  We sat down. “But how—?”

  “Let me explain.” She ordered a pot of tea from the waiter. “James and I visited Mrs. Reed last night. Miss Georgiana was there, visiting from Harvard. She’s leaving for California today, and when Mrs. Reed mentioned that you were going away to live in Jefferson, Miss Georgiana said wouldn’t it be something if she saw you on the train.”

  “Oh,” was my brilliant response. I looked around, but there was no Georgiana in sight.

  Bessie went on, “So I thought: there’s only one transcontinental each week, and Gateshead is the hub. It could well happen you’d change trains here. Why not see if I could catch you?”

  “I’m so glad you did, Bessie.” I looked around the busy café but there was no sign of Georgiana. “But who is James?”

  “Who is James? Why, he’s Dr. Lloyd, Jane. Did you forget him?”

  “Never. But I didn’t know his first name.” I looked at her again. She was not only prettier. She was happier, and better dressed. She’d truly changed. “And yet you use his first name freely.”