by Cynthia Hand
“Afternoon, miss,” Grace said, not looking up from her sewing. She didn’t look anxious or remorseful or delinquent, or any of the other ways Jane thought a person who had committed arson would look the day after.
“What’s happened?” Jane said.
“The master fell asleep with his candle still burning. It toppled and lit the curtains on fire. The master woke and doused it before it spread.”
Grace Poole said this in a disinterested way, nothing vexed about her tone.
“That’s not right,” Helen said. “Jane doused the flames.”
“Is he all right?” Jane said, and then added in her head, Did he say anything about me?
Mrs. Fairfax interrupted. “Prepare yourself, Miss Eyre, for I have word that Mr. Rochester plans for a party of people to descend upon Thornfield Hall this very evening when he returns.”
“What? Where is he?” Jane tried not to look too anxious, but then she knocked over her goblet of water.
Mrs. Fairfax raised her eyebrows.
“I meant, he’s not at Thornfield?”
“No, he has gone to town to speak to his accountant. But he sent a messenger and we must prepare.”
“Who is in this so-called party of people?”
Mrs. Fairfax tilted her head as if this was a strange question to ask. “A few prominent families from the village. They are to accompany the Ingrams.” She leaned close to Jane. “The daughter of Lady Ingram, it is believed, will soon be betrothed to the master.”
“Who?”
“Blanche Ingram. She is from a wealthy family. She is widely known to be a great beauty and very accomplished.”
All the things Jane was not.
“He’s to marry her?” Jane blurted. Just last night he’d been holding her hand. He’d talked about the good she was going to do him. They’d had their Moment.
“Mr. Rochester is an eligible and, if I might add, financially solvent bachelor, which makes him extremely attractive.”
Jane stomped her foot beneath the folds of her dress. “Why don’t we all just marry him!”
Mrs. Fairfax raised her eyebrows, but Jane stormed out.
Once in her room, she rummaged through her things (which only filled one drawer, so not much rummaging was involved) and took out her canvases and brushes, and began to paint her feelings.
She imagined a young woman, dressed in the finest silk gown with the puffiest sleeves, the shiniest white shoes, the laciest parasol. The skin on her face was porcelain and perfect, her cheeks rosy. Her hair was black and arranged in an intricate braid, so there was no question that a servant, or maybe even two, had attended her. She emerged from Jane’s brush with a knowing smile.
Then Jane set an easel next to her mirror and painted herself. Brown hair that any lowborn girl could have done without help. Brown eyes that never danced, no matter what the light. Skin that was tan in places where she’d had no choice but to work in the sun. Ribs and collarbone that were not softened by years of adequate nutrition. Shadows under her eyes.
When she had finished, she stepped back to assess her work. Helen peered over her shoulder.
“What are you doing, dear?” Helen said.
Jane frowned. “Reminding myself.”
TWELVE
Alexander
They arrived at Thornfield with much more fanfare than seemed necessary. Carriage after carriage pulled in to the long drive of a dark, looming house. It looked cold. Definitely haunted. (Alexander was something of an expert at identifying haunted houses, after all.)
A knot in his chest tightened as the carriages stopped, riders dismounted, and a housekeeper opened the front door to allow the party entrance.
And what a party it was. There was Lady Ingram and her two daughters, Blanche and Mary. Sir and Lady Lynn, along with their sons Henry and Frederick Lynn. Colonel Dent and Mrs. Colonel Dent. And of course there was the “Eshton” family, Mr. Eshton (Alexander), and his cousins Amy (Miss Brontë) and Louis (Branwell).
All in all, it was more of a crowd than Alexander liked, and he didn’t understand why the Lynns and Dents had to come along.
To be fair, they probably didn’t understand why the Eshtons had to come along.
“You seem distracted.” Miss Brontë kept her voice low as the group all walked to the door. She looked very well today, he couldn’t help but notice. The day dress she wore suited her, forest green with ivory trim, and a bit of proper food and sleep had given her complexion a healthier cast than when he’d first met her.
She lifted her gaze to him and raised an eyebrow.
It probably wasn’t proper to notice how well she looked today.
“Just eager to get through this.” He ducked his face to hide the creeping blush. Without his mask, he felt all his thoughts were plain on his face, evident for anyone to see. But especially Miss Brontë. Even without her glasses, he knew she missed nothing.
Ahead, the other families entered the house, greeted by a dark figure within. Rochester. A man most protective of his governess.
Miss Brontë touched Alexander’s shoulder. “We will persuade her,” she said. After a week in Millcote together, he was rather coming to appreciate her presence. Even Branwell’s, to a point.
The feeling of being watched tugged his attention, and he glanced up.
Two faces peered out a second-story window. One was a young girl, with little ringlets framing her angelic face. The other was Jane Eyre.
“Don’t look,” he murmured to Miss Brontë, “but your friend is up there.”
“I’m sure she’ll be shocked to see me.”
It must have been difficult for her not to look. Miss Eyre surely wouldn’t recognize Alexander—not in this different context and not without his mask—but he still needed to be careful. He had to give Miss Brontë plenty of time to talk with Miss Eyre and persuade her to their cause, and then help arrange a graceful exit.
Just before Alexander dropped his eyes to the door again, he caught a hint of someone behind the two girls in the window. A third girl, perhaps four or five years younger than him, and there was something off about her. She wasn’t exactly . . . solid.
A ghost.
Then Miss Brontë and Branwell passed through the front door, and Alexander had to follow behind them.
And again there was Mr. Rochester, standing on the far side of the room, greeting his guests. There was something familiar about him, though Alexander couldn’t place it. Certainly he hadn’t encountered the man recently, but . . .
A flash of memory struck: this man sitting across the table from Alexander’s father, laughing at one of those jokes his father always told. Had always told.
Had they been friends?
Ahead, Rochester clasped Lady Lynn’s hands, and they kissed each other’s cheeks. Then Colonel Dent greeted him, followed by Miss Blanche Ingram, who fluttered her eyelashes in his direction, as if he wasn’t twenty years her senior.
The man himself was tall. Too tall, some might say. (No one, in fact, would say this. As we’ve mentioned before, exceedingly tall was considered attractive in this day, and Alexander was quite aware that he was of average height.) In addition to a vertical advantage, Rochester had dark, dark eyes. Those eyes now turned toward Alexander, and he waited for some spark of recognition, considering all his life he’d been told he was the spitting image of his father.
But there was nothing.
Then Lady Ingram introduced him, Miss Brontë, and Branwell as the Eshton family, and Alexander smiled. “Good evening,” he said, and extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, sir.”
Rochester took the offered hand and shook, and that was that. They had gained entrance to Thornfield. Miss Brontë’s plan had worked. Now she just needed a moment with Miss Eyre.
That afternoon, the entire party went out on horseback, which made it impossible for Miss Brontë to get away from the group and locate Miss Eyre.
It wasn’t until dinnertime that they returned to the house, but Miss Eyre—nat
urally—was not at the table.
After dinner, the group moved into the drawing room. “Oh, what a love of a child!” cried one of the ladies when she saw a little girl—the child Miss Eyre had come to teach.
Alexander took a seat toward the center of the room, where he could appear to be part of every conversation, but actually be involved in none. He preferred to observe the group. But even before everyone had come in, the space had been occupied by three girls, two living and one dead.
Miss Eyre sat next to a ghost in the window seat, the possessor of a fine view of the room, but also out of the way. She seemed unusually subdued tonight. Not that he really knew her well enough to make that kind of observation, but his memory of her popping out from behind the bar in Oxenhope was still very vivid. Given what he knew of her, though, the grand surroundings and even grander company might have something to do with it.
Still, her hair was plaited and she’d donned a much nicer dress than he’d seen her wearing in the Tully Pub and Lowood school.
Then both girl and ghost saw Miss Brontë.
“It’s Charlotte! It’s Charlotte!” The ghost clasped her hands and hopped. “Let’s go say hello!”
For Miss Eyre’s part, she looked surprised to see Miss Brontë, but then she shushed the ghost and muttered, “Yes, it’s Charlotte, but she obviously disguised herself for a reason. Just sit.”
The ghost dropped to the floor.
Alexander forced his expression into blankness. Miss Eyre and the ghost were friends? That complicated things.
The last thing Alexander needed was for Branwell to have seen that exchange and start up a conversation with the ghost, which, as we all know, would end in disaster.
But Alexander didn’t have to worry about Branwell. The redhead was fully occupied by a discussion of flower arrangements with Mary Ingram and Mrs. Dent.
“Texture,” he was saying. “It’s so important to have a variety of textures in order to add visual interest.”
“Oh, I agree.” Mrs. Dent picked up a vase of wildflowers, and the three of them began to critique the contents.
Meanwhile, Miss Eyre’s young student was surrounded by a court of men and women she mistakenly believed were admiring her, because they’d lead with comments such as “What a pretty dress!” and “Adorable ringlets.”
“Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children.” Blanche Ingram looked at the girl as one might a rabid squirrel.
“Nor am I.” Rochester hardly took his eyes off the young lady everyone said he was going to marry.
“Then what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?” She pointed at Adele. “Where did you pick her up?”
“I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands.”
From across the room, Miss Eyre leaned toward the ghost and whispered, “Isn’t that good of him? So compassionate.”
The ghost frowned. “He talks about Adele like she’s a stray dog. He often calls her ‘the brat.’”
Miss Eyre just shook her head and continued gazing at Rochester.
“You should have sent her to school.” Miss Ingram seemed unaffected by Rochester’s generous nature.
“I could not afford it: schools are so dear,” replied Rochester.
Alexander glanced around the lavishly decorated house, which had to have at least twenty bedrooms and two kitchens, a stable, orchards and fields and gardens surrounding, and not to mention a carriage house filled with vehicles all bearing the Thornfield crest.
Oh, yes. Schools were so dear.
“But you hired a governess. That’s even more expensive. You have to keep them both. You know how governesses like to take over the house, and children demand so much food and then refuse to eat any of it.” Miss Ingram sent a scathing glance toward Miss Eyre, who seemed to be shrinking in her window seat. “Oh, look, she’s right here. Why do you think she’s down here, socializing, making us take care of her charge?”
“Because,” said the ghost, “he ordered her to come down here!”
Miss Eyre leaned forward again, as though waiting for Rochester to defend her, but the master of the house looked indifferent to the subject.
“Well, she’s here,” he said.
“He cornered her in the hallway earlier,” continued the ghost. “She tried to say she wanted to stay upstairs, but she was given no choice!”
“Oh, it’s not that bad,” Miss Eyre murmured, her gaze still locked on Rochester. “I don’t mind. Think of how much better this is than Lowood.”
Alexander leaned toward Miss Brontë, wanting to tell her that now might be a good time to speak to Miss Eyre, even if ladies of “Amy Eshton’s” station didn’t interact with governesses. But then the conversation moved a little too close for Alexander to privately convey his instructions.
Blanche Ingram turned toward her sister. “Remember how our governesses used to call us villainous children? Oh, they hated us so.”
“All fifty of them!” Mary Ingram laughed as she looked at Miss Brontë. “What about you, dear Amy? Did you have many governesses?”
Miss Brontë gave a nervous laugh, pitching her voice slightly higher than normal. “Oh, Louis and I had only one over the years, and she didn’t mind us. She let us get away with anything. We regularly destroyed her desk and books, and she gave us candy.”
The Miss Ingrams both giggled. “That is too good,” said Mary Ingram. “Too good.”
Alexander glanced toward Miss Eyre to see what she’d thought of Miss Brontë’s story, but she was watching Rochester, as though waiting for him to put a stop to this rude conversation about her kind.
Strangely, Rochester did nothing. He did not defend the breed, nor ask his guests to be less rude, or even turn to acknowledge Miss Eyre. That was odd, though, because he’d been so protective of her when Alexander had written. And he’d acted warmly earlier, but here, he was cold and close to cruel.
What a confusing man. Did he like his governess or did he hate her? It was impossible to tell.
“They’re always so plain, too, don’t you think?” Miss Ingram gazed at Miss Brontë, whose mouth dropped open, but no sound emerged. “This one is particularly plain. Why, I’ve never seen such a plain girl in all my life.”
Miss Eyre’s cheeks went red, her eyes darting between Rochester and Miss Ingram.
“What?” The ghost balled her hands into fists.
Meanwhile, a few of the guests desperately tried to change the subject. “We should do something fun,” said Lady Lynn. “Let’s play a game.”
“Charades?” asked Branwell/Louis. “I like charades.”
“Excuse me.” Toward the window (Alexander tried very hard not to look directly), the ghost paced back and forth in front of Miss Eyre. “Is no one going to deal with the fact that earlier today Rochester ordered you to come down here and now he’s just ignoring you? Which is especially rude because you look amazing today, but I guess no one cares?”
“Oh, Helen. I look as I always look. You know that.” Though Miss Eyre kept her voice low and her face downward, tears filled her eyes.
“Charades can be fun,” said Colonel Dent. “I don’t think I’d mind.”
“I. Mind!” Helen stomped her foot, and suddenly the floor trembled. “Jane is the best and you’re all the worst!”
Abruptly, the merriment on the popular side of the room halted. “What was that?” asked one of the others.
“It was me!” Helen screamed.
“Helen,” Jane hissed. But this time, the ghost’s scream had actually been loud enough, and emotion-filled enough, for everyone to hear . . . something.
“What a strange sound.” Lady Ingram glanced pointedly at Alexander before turning to Rochester. “My dear, something is very wrong here.”
“Like what?” Rochester looked around, as though completely lost as to why the subject had changed from games and humiliating governesses. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I heard it,” said Adele. “It was a scary noise.”
“My friend,” said Colonel Dent, “there was a truly unearthly wailing sound that came from over there.” He pointed toward the window where Miss Eyre sat.
All eyes swung toward Miss Eyre. “It—it wasn’t me,” she stammered.
“Stop being mean to Jane, you awful . . . You see? This is why no one likes the living. Humans!”
Alexander tried not to look directly at the ghost. No one else could see her, except Branwell, of course, and Branwell wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding the fact that he saw her as plain as day. Not that she noticed. Helen was shrieking now, calling everyone names, hurling insults, and generally being the type of ghost that Alexander was paid to relocate.
“Mr. Rochester,” Alexander said, “have you ever heard a noise like this before?”
Rochester shook his head, visibly frightened, though his fear was probably because he knew this was an actual ghost situation, not just a strange whistling of the wind over a crack in the window.
The Ingrams all shot one another understanding looks. As far as they knew, this was the ghost the Society had come here to catch. Alexander could almost see them deciding that the Society agents would clear this up any moment now. Mary Ingram even went so far as to lean toward Miss Brontë and whisper something too soft for Alexander to hear under Helen’s screams.
“You’re so mean to her,” Helen continued. “How dare you call her plain!” Just then, the wildflowers Branwell and Mrs. Dent had been discussing—as well as every other flower in the room—exploded in showers of orange and pink and green. Plant sludge splattered on the floor.
Awkwardly, Miss Eyre crept away from the window. “My word, what a storm outside.”
Through the glass, the sky was perfectly clear.
“It wasn’t a storm!” Helen shouted. A vase flew across the room, whizzing past Rochester’s head before it shattered against a wall. “It was me!”