Adèle dropped her mantle on the floor and seated herself comfortably in a chair, with a sigh. Looking about her, she said, ‘Oh, how nice. And how lovely it is to be back in my old home, dear old Thornfield. But, Step-mama, I must tell you of the wonderful curtains made by the weavers of Lyon. I am sure if you saw their work you would pull down all the curtains in the house and replace them.’
‘There is nothing wrong with a good English decorative style, I think,’ Blanche said. She turned to me, ‘These young things, they have their ideas.’
‘N’est-ce pas?’ laughed Adèle, and with a charming gesture, added in French, ‘The old must give place to the new – am I not right?’
‘Oh,’ smiled Blanche Norton, ‘I see we shall have to look to ourselves, with Miss Rochester, the revolutionary of the decorative arts, among us.’ Then she asked Adèle, ‘Have you plans, my dear, now you are home?’
‘I have had enough of plans,’ said Adèle. ‘For so long I have been subject to routines imposed by others – lessons, church, exercise, then exercise, church, lessons. I think I deserve a little time without plans.’
‘I am sure you do,’ Blanche assured her, while I understood from this last statement that Adèle believed herself home for good, which, I confess, was not welcome news to me.
I wondered how this young woman would employ herself all day. She was now the age, eighteen, that I had been when I set out into the world to earn my living and in pursuit of this aim had gained a position at Thornfield Hall as her governess. But, thought I, as tea was brought into the room, Adèle would have no fixed employment such as that, which was perhaps the better for her, but what else could we find for her to do? I could not imagine in her a useful assistant in duties concerning the people of Hay – more particularly, in the school I planned to found. As a child she had been vain and pleasure-loving and the years had not altered that. No more improbable figure could be imagined than Adèle visiting the sickbeds of poor villagers, or teaching the rough children of the locality to chant their ABCs.
As soon as the table was set and the tea placed, Adèle captured the teapot. ‘I must learn how to be a proper Englishwoman,’ she said merrily, ‘and teach myself to preside over the tea table. How glad I am to be home. And how is my amiable guardian, my lovely father, my beloved Rochester?’ which name she pronounced in the French way with a rolling ‘r’ – Rrrochestair. I noted that she had, gracefully, inserted the word ‘father’ in her description of him. She poured the tea and handed it to Blanche Norton, who, judging by her manner, seemed well pleased with this new member of our household.
‘I have been trying to persuade Mrs. Rochester to come to London,’ said she.
‘Oh, how delightful. That, if anything, is above all what I desire, to see London, the museums, galleries – above all, the theatres.’
‘And the shops, no doubt,’ added Blanche.
‘Oh, them above all,’ agreed Adèle, and she and Blanche burst out laughing.
‘Well,’ said Blanche, when the laughter had died, ‘well – my dears, I must leave you or I shall be late for my guests at dinner.’ She stood, we all stood, and, repeating her invitation to dine at Raybeck Hall, this time including Adèle in the invitation, she departed.
Once she had gone, Adèle sobered. ‘How pleasant it is to be back,’ she said, leaning back in her chair, a piece of cake in her hand. ‘But where is Rochester?’
‘He’s away on business,’ I told her. ‘Did you not receive my letter at the school?’
‘What letter? No,’ she said, biting into the cake and putting it back on her plate again with a grimace. ‘I must have a word with Cook,’ she declared.
‘So you received no letter saying your father thought it better if you were to stay on until spring?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘But, Step-mama, why should I stay? I’m eighteen now. It’s time I began life away from school. Did you urge him to keep me there until your child is born?’
‘The decision was his,’ I told her.
‘Well, never mind. I’m here now,’ she announced.
‘What a charming English welcome – “Did you not receive my letter telling you not to come?” But I am here, Step-mama, and that is a fact, whether it pleases you or not,’ and with that she got up and left the room. I heard her calling for help with her baggage and ordering it to be taken upstairs. She had not asked me which room she should take, but I thought I knew she would take the largest, the best.
I have said that, over the past ten years, Adèle and I had seldom lived together. When at school she had spent many of her holidays with friends. Since she had been in Switzerland she had returned to England twice, but on one occasion had stayed with my cousin Diana and her husband since there was insufficient room for her at Ferndean. Each spring Edward had gone to to visit her at school in Switzerland. Our encounters had been so few since her childhood it could have been said that Adèle and I did not know each other at all.
There was also a difficulty as to how, precisely, Adèle was to be described. When she lived at Thornfield as a child, the world had believed she was my husband’s daughter. He had never stated this precisely, though he had told me once, years ago at Thornfield, ‘perhaps she may be’. But there is a vast chasm between ‘perhaps she may be’ and ‘is’ in matters of this kind. Meanwhile, she was known as his ward. She had not scrupled to name Edward as her father before Blanche Norton, nor me as ‘Step-mama’ but, without my husband’s absolute word on the subject, the question was not settled. If Adèle had returned to England for good, the matter must be resolved formally, so that everyone knew in what light she should be regarded.
I own it – I did not welcome her return. I did not like her claim to be my husband’s daughter; I could not imagine how she would employ herself at Thornfield.
She did not come down to dinner and I sat alone in the dining-room, hoping against hope Edward would return that evening and begin to resolve the difficulties besetting us. But he did not come.
Chapter XVII
My sleep that night was penetrated by nightmares. When I woke the following morning I lay in a kind of stupor, recalling visions of fire licking roof-tiles, the madwoman poised on the parapet with her dishevelled hair, teeth bared, flames around her. In that state I rose, disturbed by the knowledge I was dwelling in a house which was an exact copy of that in which all these horrors had taken place. Above me was a replica of the top storey where the madwoman had been kept; above that – the roof from which she had plunged to her death.
Edward had been gone four days and I knew not how much longer he would be away. I decided I must be resolute and concern myself with what I could usefully do in his absence, for though my mind was ill at ease I knew I was stronger in body. I went early to the garden, where men were beginning the work on rebuilding the wall nearest the house and the gardener’s assistant was digging out the paths. The gardener himself was on a ladder cutting back the wild tangled branches of the fruit trees. I moved to the far side of the garden and looked through the broken wall at the expanse of long, wild grass and at the thorn trees, all leaves gone now, their branches spiky and skeletal. I shivered and then, as if to defy the fearful image, thought I would see something more of the world of Thornfield Hall in which I found myself.
Mr. Sugden had come up to see how work on the garden was going, and I asked him to take me up to the lead mines, for this was what I had resolved earlier. He was very shocked. ‘Mrs. Rochester,’ he exclaimed, ‘I cannot. Mr. Rochester would never want you to go there.’
‘Why? Are the lead-miners and their families tigers, that I should be afraid to go among them? I understand they are employees of a company, yet they and their families are part of my care.’
‘I do not think so, madam, with respect.’
‘If not mine, then whose?’ I asked him. ‘Will the company which leases the land care for them? Come, Mr. Sugden. We both know there is bad feeling against the Rochesters in Hay and the mines are part of Hay; there
are many dwellings there, and the people may be in want. I must see for myself.’
‘I would much prefer not to, Mrs. Rochester,’ he said soberly.
‘Then you must tell me why not.’
‘The people there are poor, profoundly ignorant. Their lives are brutish in the extreme. It is no fit place for you, Mrs. Rochester. Please believe me.’
But I insisted, for those mines were Edward’s, and would be Jonathan’s, and though the Blanche Nortons of this world are reared to believe they are born to be supplied and others born to supply them, I was not so educated. And I suspected matters at those mines, high up in the hills, might be very bad – and indeed they were.
I am an uncertain rider but Jeremy found me a quiet mount and we plodded to the verges of Hay, then took the rough track uphill towards the mines. On either side was hillside, where a few sheep grazed. As we ascended, the landscape became barer, a desert of stone and tufted grass in patches. Behind were the great bleak shapes of the mountains, overhung with cloud, snow on their heights. In many places the ground was pitted with vast excavations where the company which leased the land had dug pits in order to discover side-seams leading off from the main vein of lead.
The sound of a steady thumping came from all around, growing louder as we climbed. Ahead of me on their rocky track, Sugden called back, ‘The sound is that of the steam pump at the bottom of the pits, pumping out the water. Usually in these parts the work stops during the winter months, for conditions are too hard, but profits are low at present, so they will keep working.’
‘That must be bad for the miners,’ said I.
‘No worse than it will be later when they have no work and no pay,’ he responded dourly.
Now we had reached the miners’ dwellings. These straggled beside the track, or a little way off, in no pattern or order. Some were of wood, mere huts, others of stone, with one room or two. Chickens scratched on the bare ground in rough enclosures; there was a pig in a stone pen. A dirty brook ran down the hillside nearby.
There must have been, scattered across the hillside, some thirty or forty homes. Outside were the people, mostly women and children. If Hay was poor, these folk were poorer. Half the children had no proper shoes; some were barefoot, in spite of the cold. These children stared blankly as we progressed. Thin women, shawls over their heads, gazed at us, with guarded expressions on their faces.
‘The wages here are low,’ Sugden muttered. ‘In the mills and factories, and among the canal-diggers and such, there’s often good money, but these folk get much the same low rate as farm labourers and they can grow little here to feed themselves, on this poor soil. The great thing, Mrs. Rochester’, he added, ‘is to avoid Mangan, the manager. He thinks I’ve no business here.’ Then he spotted a man on crutches, apparently about to take a bucket down to the stream. He called, ‘Hey, Watkin!’
The man limped over slowly and stood by Sugden’s horse. ‘This man is out, due to an accident,’ Sugden explained to me. He said to Watkin, who stood, pitifully thin, with his old greatcoat whipping about him in the bitter wind, ‘Here’s Mrs. Rochester from the big house, wanting to see how you’re going on here. I don’t want to talk to Mangan, though’.
‘Oh, Mangan – him,’ said the other despondently.
‘Leg healing?’ enquired Sugden. He turned to me. ‘Mangan says I’ve no place here – he’s the company’s man, of course, and wants no interference from the landlord’s agent. He sends for me fast enough, though, when there’s an accident.’ He turned back to the man. ‘So, Watkin, is your leg mending?’
‘It improves, by a miracle,’ Watkin replied. ‘He’ll shut down the mine, though, before I’m ready for work again, Mangan will. On account of the weather.’
‘The company will, I expect,’ agreed Sugden.
‘And then the hard times begin.’
‘Well, you’ll have a friend here in Mrs. Rochester,’ Sugden told him. ‘She wants to assist you. Look here, Watkin, you’re a man who can read, write and figure. What you must do is make a list of all here, each family, with how many are working and how many children and their ages. Then you must give it to me and I will hand it to Mrs. Rochester and she will try to do her best for all of you.’ He added, with emphasis, ‘But do not tell Mangan, for I cannot afford to come up against the company at first. Once the deed is done and Mrs. Rochester is in charge, all will be well. Why should they object then,’ he said, turning to me, ‘when you will be making up the miners’ pay? Had you considered that, madam?’
‘I had not until now,’ I told him. ‘But I can’t make it my business to quarrel with the employers, for that is beyond my sphere.’
Sugden nodded, satisfied. I looked down at the other man’s wasted face. ‘Mr. Watkin,’ I said, ‘will you, can you, do as Mr. Sugden suggests – make a list?’
‘Speak up, man. Answer the lady,’ Sugden told him impatiently. ‘Here’s a chance none of you can afford to refuse. Do your part, then, make the list. Look, here’s a pencil and some paper. Will you do it?’ He took a stub of pencil and a notebook from his breast pocket tore out some pages and passed them down to Watkin. ‘I’ll be back in two days. Not a word to Mangan.’ Then to me he said, ‘Come, Mrs. Rochester,’ and, giving his horse a kick in the flank, he turned the animal round and set off down the hill.
I followed him down the steep and rocky path, past those dismal houses and their benumbed inhabitants, the majority, if not all, of whom were, it seemed to me, too cold and undernourished, too robbed of any hope, perhaps even to feel any emotion as we passed. My heart was weary at this sight for I believe no beings should be permitted to exist thus.
We were silent until we were down the hill and on the road back to Thornfield.
Then, ‘Well, Mr. Sugden,’ said I, ‘thank you. You have been most helpful.’
‘I hope Mr. Rochester will not blame me for taking you to that ugly place.’
Back at Thornfield I thanked him again for his help and told him I hoped my husband would agree to my making some efforts to improve conditions among the mining folk. ‘It is wrong, surely, for men and women to live in such wretched conditions,’ I said.
He looked at me soberly. ‘You are very good, madam,’ he said. ‘If you wish my wife to help you I am sure she would be pleased to do so. She has often said…’ he faltered a little ‘…said that something might be done.’
‘Good. That is excellent. I should welcome her assistance. However, the whole matter is of course for Mr. Rochester to decide,’ I said, and we parted cordially.
I re-entered the house, still a little shaken by the sights I had witnessed at the lead mine. They told me Adèle had gone out for a walk. I went upstairs to change from my riding-dress and then noticed, as I tidied my hair in the glass, that the simple objects on my dressing-table – my brushes, a silver box of hair-pins, a flask of lavender-water – were disarranged. I opened a drawer. The box in which I kept my few items of jewellery had been moved, I thought, and I looked further and discovered more signs of careful search, though nothing was missing. I have that sense of order imposed on those brought up narrowly under strict regimes, or I might not have noticed the tiny displacements, for all that had been examined had been most carefully replaced. I had little doubt, alas, about the identity of the searcher. It must have been Adèle, though her motive was obscure to me. However, those who are curious about the possessions of others need no motive but their own curiosity.
I was angered, for such deeds, furtive and intrusive, are abhorrent and then, by a curious inspiration, went swiftly to Edward’s dressing-room and looked in the drawer where I had discovered the miniature of Céline Varens. It was gone.
Returning to my own chamber, I sat down on the chair by the window, much perturbed. I could not accuse Adèle directly for she would undoubtedly deny the charge and there was no proof there had been a search, or that, if there had been, she was responsible. Such an accusation would transform me into the wicked step-mother she would so dearly like me t
o prove myself. And as to the miniature – to point out its removal would only establish that I was no better than she. I, too, had made a search in a place where I had no business to look.
Meanwhile, I wondered, where was she? The maid told me she had gone by the footpath to the church and so I thought I would follow her. In any event, I planned to call on Mr. Todd, with a view to discussing with him what measures might be taken to ameliorate the conditions of the mining folk.
I took the footpath also, for it led directly across fields from Thornfield a mere half-mile, and would not tax me unduly. The footpath led through the churchyard and as I entered it I observed a group of five people all staring in the direction of the church wall. Beside the wall was Adèle, kneeling on the ground, bent over, seeming to be in paroxysms of grief.
As I stood, amazed, I observed Mr. Todd hurrying along the path from the direction of the vicarage with a concerned air. Catching sight of me where I stood on the path, he came up to me. ‘Mrs. Rochester. How delightful to see you. I have been called by my housekeeper, who told me there is a lady in the churchyard, much upset.’
‘I believe it is my step-daughter, recently returned from abroad,’ I said. ‘I shall go to her.’
‘Allow me to come with you,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I can be of assistance.’
We crossed the churchyard together. By the wall Adèle knelt, bent over a grave which was headed by a small stone. She was weeping. Mr. Todd went to her, spoke gently to her and raised her, still sobbing, to her feet. I looked at the headstone – a plain oval stone, rounded at the top, bearing the simple words ‘Bertha Rochester, wife of Edward Fairfax Rochester of Thornfield Hall’, with beneath them the dates.
This was the madwoman’s final resting-place. For the first time I felt a little pity for that wretched creature, married off to a foreigner by an unscrupulous family who had concealed their hereditary taint, then, far from friends, descending into insanity, incarcerated at Thornfield – then the fire and her terrible death. When I had visited Thornfield while it was being rebuilt, I had wondered where she lay buried. This was a cruel way to find the place, with Adèle weeping beside it.
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