The Other Wife

by Juliet Bell

  She shook her head. Suddenly everything was clear. ‘Not me. You. They came for your father. They came because he kept a nice house and was a good host. They came because of his name and his reputation. I didn’t change anything.’ She was victorious. Whatever happened next she could see that this wasn’t about her. It was him. He’d inherited this vast place that his ancestors had built and tended and given value to, and he couldn’t do it. ‘It was you that changed everything.’

  Rochester staggered away from her. ‘No.’

  He grabbed something off the kitchen worktop. For a second she wasn’t sure what but then she saw the blade glinting in the light. She dodged to the side as he lunged at her, just stopping herself from falling onto the stove. She flailed a hand out to the side. She needed something, anything. Her fingers closed around a small metal bottle. The diesel for lighting the stove. She gripped it in her hand and swung it at his head as he lunged at her again. He caught her shoulder with the knife, but his flailing didn’t have the force to push the blade into her flesh. She dodged again. Now he was in front of the stove.

  ‘Lizzybeth!’ Adele was standing in the doorway, mouth open, eyes wide.

  ‘It’s all right, darling.’

  Edward roared with anger. ‘Neither of you are going anywhere. You both belong to me.’

  Betty knew what he did to women who belonged to him. That wouldn’t be the future. Not for either of them. He made a move towards Adele, reaching his arms out as if to grab her. Betty moved first, pushing him backwards. His hand came down on the cast-iron stove top and he screamed in pain. Betty dropped the bottle she was still holding. A harsh acrid smell rose around them as liquid slowly spread across the kitchen floor. ‘Come on, darling. Time to go now.’

  They only had a few seconds while he was distracted by the pain in his hand. Adele tried to push past him. His good arm shot out again to hold her. Betty shoved again. He started to fall, groping for something to hold on to. He gripped the handle of the firebox, pulling it open. A red glow filled the room.

  He reached out to her. ‘Elizabeth.’

  She shook her head. ‘My name is Betty,’ she screamed.

  The wood inside the firebox settled, and a shower of sparks leapt from their prison onto the diesel-soaked floor.

  The fire leapt up around his legs. Adele screamed. Betty grabbed her, pulling her through the flames to the door before the blaze had a chance to take them all. And then she took tight hold of the young girl’s hand and together they ran.

  Chapter 64

  Jane

  The sun had long since set, but there was still a gold and red glow against the horizon. It danced like a legendary min min light, but this was very, very real. I jammed my foot down on the accelerator. Was it a bush fire? If so it must be close to the house.

  The sense of urgency that had been growing in me since leaving Sydney was now too strong to be contained. I tore down the gravel road, unafraid of the risks. A kangaroo bounded past, a flash in the headlights, but I didn’t even touch my brakes. I had to get to Thornfield. I had to find them.

  The car raced past the empty airstrip and slid to a stop between the house and the yards.

  The homestead was ablaze. Flames licked from the kitchen up the side of the building. As I jumped from the car, a window on the top floor blew out and flames danced up towards the roof. That top story above the kitchen held Elizabeth’s rooms. I ran towards the fire, the heat already starting to scorch the bare skin of my arms and face.

  ‘Elizabeth!’ I screamed. ‘Adele!’

  There were figures now moving at the edges of the fire. Aboriginal workmen were yelling through the smoke. Max was there, shirtless and dripping with sweat. He swung a wet sack at the embers that were flaring to life in the dry grass, catching each tiny blaze before it took off. All they could do was try to stop the fire spreading. The homestead was beyond saving. It was going to burn.

  All that mattered now was saving the rest of the property…and the people.

  I ran over to Max. ‘Where’s Adele?’ I panted.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Elizabeth? Edward?’

  He turned his face towards me for a second, and I saw the panic and desperation. ‘How the fuck would I know?’

  I staggered backwards, beaten by the heat. There was no way I could get into the house to save them. Tears fell down my face. I stumbled away from the smoke.

  I walked away from the house, and stopped to survey the scene. Then I saw them. Two figures, huddled together, staggering across the scrub away from the burning building. I ran towards them.

  ‘Jane!’ The childish cry tore into my heart. Adele raced towards me, her face streaked with tears. She flung herself into my outstretched arms and I grasped her to me as if I would never let her go.

  ‘Jane. You came back for me.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’ I looked over her shoulder to see Elizabeth kneeling on the ground, coughing and gasping.

  I took Adele’s hand and ran the few yards to the other woman. ‘Are you OK?’

  She looked at me in confusion. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Adele joined me in pulling Elizabeth to her feet. ‘She came back for us, Lizzybeth. She came back.’

  Reader, we let it burn.

  It was over; at least for us. Max and the stockmen would continue to fight the fire, but there was nothing left here for me, or for Adele or Betty. The three of us had virtually nothing but the clothes we were wearing. Nothing but each other. That was enough.

  We drove away in my hire car without even looking back. Slowly the light of the blaze receded in my rear-view mirror and the darkness returned, broken only by the strong beam of our headlights as we turned onto the highway and headed east.

  I don’t know where we will go or even if we will go together.

  But I am no longer alone. I am no longer afraid. And at last I know who I truly am.

  Acknowledgements

  This book couldn’t have been written without the support of many people.

  Firstly, thanks to Charlotte Brontë for her wonderful original novel, Jane Eyre.

  Our thanks also go to our agent, Julia Silk, and to our editor, Clio Cornish – both of whom supported and championed the story we were telling.

  Writing a novel is a curiously solitary task, even when there’s two of you, so we must also thank all our friends and family for supporting us during the process. Huge thanks to all our friends in the RNA, especially the magnificent women of the naughty kitchen. And extra special thanks to John and Paul for, well, for everything really.

  And finally – thank you, dear reader, for choosing this book.

  If you enjoyed The Other Wife, keep reading for an extract from The Heights – another brilliant and immersive retelling of a classic from Juliet Bell – out now!

  Prologue

  Gimmerton, West Yorkshire, 2007

  The searchers took several hours to find the body, even though they knew roughly where to look. The whole hillside had collapsed and, although the rain had cleared, there was water running off the moors and over the slick black rubble. The searchers were concerned about their own safety on the unstable slope. The boy, they knew, was beyond their help. This was a recovery, not a rescue.

  Twice during the search, the hillside started to move again, and the searchers held their breath. The blue hills were nothing but mine waste. There was no substance to them. They were as fragile as the lives of the people who lived below them on the estate that clung to the land around the abandoned pithead.

  Some of the searchers had worked in that mine. Years ago. The boy they were searching for was one of their own. Almost. He had the right name, even if most of them had never laid eyes on him. They knew his family. His grandfather had worked beside them at the coalface. His uncle too had been one of them. Not the father, mind. But still, they weren’t going to leave the lad buried beneath the landslip.

  The family weren’t out there on the slope. Maybe the police had told t
hem to stay behind. But maybe not. Maybe they just hadn’t come.

  They’d been looking for a couple of hours when the photographer from the local newspaper arrived. He was told to wait safely beyond the edge of the slip. But he was carrying an array of big and expensive lenses. His camera would go to the places he couldn’t.

  The sun was sinking when they found him.

  One of the searchers had started yet another small slip, and as the rock slid away, almost like liquid, part of the body was exposed. Carefully, they had pulled him free.

  The boy hadn’t died easily. Father Joseph, down at St Mary’s, was an old-fashioned priest, but there was no way this lad was going to have an open casket. His body had been pummelled by the sliding rock. The rain had washed most of the blood away, but it was still enough to make one of the men turn away and heave into the scrubby grass.

  Surprisingly, the boy’s face was hardly damaged at all. Just a couple of small scrapes and a cut on his temple.

  The team leader removed his rucksack and dug inside to find a body bag. Carefully, they lifted the boy and put him inside. There was a sense of relief when the bag was closed.

  They carried him down from the hills. The photographer followed. He took a few pictures, but then seemed to lose interest. As soon as they reached the road, the photographer broke away and walked quickly to the warmth of his car.

  The searchers carried the body to the ambulance and waited while he was gently placed inside. Then they too dispersed.

  The ambulance and the police were the last to leave. The ambulance was destined for the morgue. The police car turned into the estate and parked outside one of the few houses that wasn’t boarded up and deserted.

  The young constable got out, and carefully placed his hat on his head and straightened his uniform jacket. That’s what you did when you brought bad news to a family, even one that hadn’t bothered to come and join the search.

  He walked up to number 37 Moor Lane and knocked on the door.

  Chapter 1

  Gimmerton, 2008

  This was the place he had almost died. Lockwood shivered. In front of him, the chain-link fence was rusted and sagging. The sign hung at an angle, the words NO TRESPASSING all but covered with dirt and grime. Beyond the fence, in the grey light of the overcast afternoon, the buildings looked dark and decayed. Odd bits of iron, stripped from the disused mining machines, lay scattered about the ground and weeds were reclaiming their place in the filthy wasteland of the deserted pit. One building was open to the elements, the remains of its roof lying in a twisted heap between the crumbling brick walls. Not a single pane of glass remained intact. The men of this town had good throwing arms. Stones hadn’t been their only weapons. Nor had windows been their only targets.

  Lockwood reached into his pocket and retrieved the piece of metal he’d carried with him every day for more than two decades. The nail was twisted and bent, distorted almost beyond recognition when it was fired through the side of the police van. The newspaper reports at the time had declared it a miracle no one was injured as the nail ricocheted around the interior. Lockwood knew better. A tiny white scar on the left side of his neck showed how close death had come. After everything he’d seen in this job, that was the place his brain took him whenever he let his guard drop. To this day he still woke, sweating at night, hearing the sound of the nail gun beside his ear, and the screech of metal as the nail tore through the body of the van. He could still feel the sharp stab of pain in his flesh.

  Lockwood told himself he was no coward. Even then, working with the riot squad, he’d expected danger. The miners were tough, and they were angry. Desperation had seeped into the bones of their community. They were about to lose their jobs. More than that, they were about to lose a way of life that had been with them for generations, the only way of life they knew. They were looking for a fight. He’d been green and keen, and could handle himself. He’d been trained to deal with anger, and there’d been so many moments in his career when something could have gone wrong. There’d been moments when things had gone wrong, but those weren’t the moments he carried with him. Instead he kept hold of this one, as clear and solid in his memory as the nail in his hand. Maybe because that was the first time things had gone wrong. Maybe because they’d never caught anyone. Maybe because of the randomness of the attack. But stay with him it had.

  They might not have caught the person who did it, but Lockwood knew who it was. The squad had been out of the vehicle seconds after the incident, breaking up the crowd pounding on the sides of the van. As he struggled in the melee, his neck damp with his own blood, Lockwood had looked towards the nearby houses and seen him. A dark youth, with hatred on his face. He’d been no more than fifteen then and already familiar to the police. He was carrying something in his hands. Lockwood couldn’t see it clearly, but he knew in his heart it was the nail gun, and somewhere amid the shouting he’d heard the words: ‘That Earnshaw kid.’

  By the time Lockwood had fought his way through the crowd the youth was gone. He’d looked at the maze of narrow streets and identical houses in the Heights estate and known he wouldn’t find him. They had investigated for a few days, but found nothing they could take to court. There were more pressing matters than one split second amid weeks of violence. Nobody was charged, and the incident was forgotten by everyone except Nelson Lockwood.

  Darkness was falling as he turned away from the mine and got back into his car. He pulled away from the gates and began to retrace the route he’d followed that morning. The estate was even shabbier than before. Most of the people had left when the mine closed. Rotting boards covered the windows of the deserted pub. Graffiti scarred the walls of the empty shops and houses. Here and there, curtains or a light in a window showed that a house was occupied. For some people, Lockwood guessed, there was simply nowhere else to go.

  His goal was the very last row of houses. A couple of the foremen had lived up here. They were the best paid and most trusted of the mine’s employees. They had also been the leaders of the strike. And they always protected their own. The hotheads who had thrown the bricks and started the fights. And a kid with the nail gun he’d stolen from the mine.

  Lockwood knew what he would find at the far end of this street, where the town ended and the wild hills began. Since his last visit, someone had turned two small houses into one. It was larger than the houses around it, but not better than them. The aura of neglect and decay was almost palpable. It would take more than a coat of paint or some new guttering to erase the memories that lingered in those walls.

  Lockwood didn’t need to see the light in the windows to know that the house was still inhabited. He’d checked that before leaving London on this final trip to Gimmerton. He drove past without stopping. There was plenty of time.

  It took only a few minutes to drive from the past back to the present. The new estate had been built on a gentle slope below the moors. The houses were all detached with well-tended gardens. They were big and new and looked away from the mine, across the valley towards the lights of the town. The people who lived in the new estate weren’t part of the old world. They sent their kids to the right schools and drove their big four-wheel drives to Leeds and Sheffield to work in offices, rather than toiling beneath the ground they lived on. Their wives ate lunch, rather than dinner, and went shopping for pleasure not for provisions. The history of this place didn’t touch the Grange Estate.

  Except for one small corner.

  The house that had given the estate its name sat slightly removed from the new buildings, surrounded by a large garden. Thrushcross Grange was Victorian – the big house built for the mine owners back in the day, then used by a succession of managers after the pit was nationalized. It remained aloof from the newer buildings that surrounded it; with them but not a part of the town’s new story. Thrushcross was the old Gimmerton.

  After parking his car, Lockwood removed his bag from the boot and slowly approached the house. Despite the need for a new coat of p
aint, it had survived the new reality far better than the Heights. But still the memories lingered. He stepped through the door and made his way to the reception desk where a young woman with an Eastern European accent waited to check him in.

  ‘Welcome to Thrushcross, sir. Do you have a reservation?’

  He nodded. ‘Under Lockwood.’

  She stared at the screen. ‘That is for a week?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It might be longer.’

  ‘It is quiet time, sir. There will be no problem to extend the booking if you want to.’

  It felt strange to be walking the same hallways as the people who had intrigued – no, obsessed – him for so many years. As he entered his room, with its high, embossed ceiling and big bay window, he wondered which of them had slept here. He looked around the room trying to picture them, but suddenly shivered. It must be the cold wind off the moors, and he was tired after the long drive from London. The guesthouse had a restaurant. He’d go down and get something to eat and maybe a whisky before he tried to sleep.

  Emerging into daylight the next morning, Lockwood was surprised to find a bright, still day. His restless sleep had been punctuated by the deep moaning of strong winds blowing off the moors, and the tapping of heavy rain against his window. Perhaps he’d been dreaming, his mind disturbed by reconnecting with the past.

  Not even dazzling sunshine could make the town centre look appealing. It had changed in twenty-four years. It had never been smart, but now the decay was overwhelming. The few remaining shops were at the bottom end of the market – charity shops, pawnbrokers, pound stores. The two small pubs didn’t look at all inviting. Nor did the only food outlets; a grease-stained chippie and an Indian. A tired looking Co-op also served as post office. Lockwood had seen a nice pub and restaurant just outside the town, on a hill with a glorious view of the moors. That must be where the people from the new estate went. Their road skirted the town centre to take them away from here without even passing through the old town and risking getting the dust of poverty and hopelessness on their shiny new cars.