Thornfield Hall (18 page)

I took Miss Eyre round the dining room, the library, the hall and through the bedrooms on the next floor. She still wasn't satisfied and asked to see the third floor if you please. I took her into the first of Grace and Bertha's rooms. We had put tapestries round the walls and they were draped so as to conceal the connecting door into Bertha's room. We did not stay there long. Once I had Miss Eyre back in the corridor I waved vaguely along its length and told her the rooms beyond were always locked; they were storerooms. I told her that this part of the house was thought to be haunted. She gave me a sharp look as if to say she didn't believe me. Next thing I knew she had found the stairs to the attic and had climbed the ladder out on to the roof. Once there she took deep breaths and gazed out at the moors beyond the lawns and the great meadow with its thorny trees and bushes. It was my first inkling that she was a fiend for fresh air.

Adele preferred to take her afternoon walk in the company of her maid. That left Miss Eyre free to wander the lanes and fields on her own. When the weather was bad and Adele took refuge near the fire with her dolls Miss Eyre chose from sheer awkwardness to take her exercise indoors and to prowl up and down the third-floor corridor like a caged animal. She would pace backwards and forwards for an hour at a time, keeping Grace and Bertha confined in silence to their room. I could not understand her restlessness.

‘Men,' Grace diagnosed with her characteristic sniff. I gave her a look of disbelief.

‘What men? You mean Old John. Or young John even. Perhaps the young blacksmith!' We giggled at the thought.

‘No. Not one man in particular, but men in general. Think about it. An all girls' school, all female teachers. I bet the only
man she's ever met was a weedy curate or an elderly man of the cloth. No disrespect to your late lamented, Alice. She's just discovered that the world contains men. It's got her juices going.'

I think Grace was right about the cause of Jane's restlessness, for it disappeared when Mr Rochester arrived. Until then it caused us considerable inconvenience. I kept telling Jane that the corridor was haunted, that strange sounds were heard at night but she was not to be deterred. When she was walking the corridor our happy chatty afternoons of sewing had to stop. We prayed for fine weather so that she might take her exercise outdoors.

Not only did I lose my afternoons of cheerful conversation but my evenings also were blighted. After Adele had gone to bed Jane would spend an hour or two with me in my room, as is the custom for upper servants; her status prevented her from spending her evenings in the servants' hall. This was a great trial for me as Miss Eyre was not only keen on fresh air and exercise but also incurably inquisitive about Thornfield Hall, its inhabitants and its history. I am by nature honest and straightforward in my dealings with people but I was charged specifically by my master to keep the presence of Bertha hidden from her.

At first the silly girl had thought I was the owner of Thornfield Hall. That shows how innocent she was of the ways of the world. Then she wanted to know all about the real owner, Mr Rochester. No one likes to draw a portrait of their employer; one either flatters or complains. There were too many barriers for us to hold a proper conversation: the presence of Bertha, my suspicion that Mr Rochester was married to her and the fact that I was desperately longing for my evening glass of porter.

Miss Eyre was a formidable inquisitor. When she interrogated me about the character of Mr Rochester I felt like one of Mr
Rowland's moths or butterflies, impaled on a pin so that I could be studied through a magnifying glass, and poked with tweezers. To avoid answering her questions without lying or breaking my promise I took to reading my bible and to knitting. I reasoned that Miss Eyre's upbringing would not allow her to interrupt someone who was reading the bible. As I clicked away with the needles I had to endure the discomfort of seeing Miss Eyre mentally dismiss me as a stupid old woman.

After some evenings of bible-reading and Miss Eyre my need for real conversation became desperate. I longed to discard my mask and engage in a free and open exchange of ideas, news and gossip with no dark places of concealment. Grace, as usual, came up with a solution. She suggested we meet in my housekeeper's room after Miss Eyre had retired to bed. She would bring Bertha with her; they would come in their nightgowns, ready for bed.

As my excuse for staying behind after Jane I told her I was responsible for the locking of the doors and the checking of the windows. It was, I insisted, much too important a job to leave to anyone else. I would light the governess's candle and watch as she climbed the main staircase while Grace and Bertha crept down the back stairs with their candles. We would congregate in my room for a chat and a glass of porter.

In this way we managed the last three months of the year. We grew quite comfortable in our routine in spite of the strain of keeping secret Bertha's presence on the third floor. Then in January Mr Rochester arrived; he heralded a year of tumultuous events.

A YEAR OF TUMULTUOUS EVENTS

1832

I
AM NOT NORMALLY SUPERSTITIOUS BUT THIS NEW
Year had an unfortunate start. Mr Rochester's arrival was blighted by some kind of fall from his horse. His ankle was badly sprained and he was forced to rest the injured joint. He took to the chaise longue by the fire in the library. Jane had been using the room to give Adele her lessons. Governess and pupil had to move out. I had a fire lit in an apartment upstairs which they could use as a school room. I doubted Adele would give much attention to her books; there was a man within reach. She would be in an agony of impatience to be in his presence so she could practise her winning ways on him.

All day the house was busy with callers for Mr Rochester. When it grew dark and started to snow, the visitors ceased. Mr Rochester sent to ask me about Adele. There was no point in my telling him what a charming child she was; gushing about children would be anathema to him. Instead I reminded him about the new governess and was told to bring Miss Eyre and Adele to take tea with him in the dining room at six o'clock.

I was keen that Jane should make a good impression on
our employer as I wanted to keep her. In spite of her occasional pacing of the third-floor corridor, she was exactly the naive and inexperienced governess I had hoped for. Naivety and inexperience, however, do have their drawbacks. On this occasion I had to explain everything to Jane as if she were a child. She had to be told to change her dress; the dull black stuff one she wore was completely unsuitable for an upper servant who was summoned to appear in a gentleman's dining room.

I offered to fasten Jane's dress so that I could go with her to her room and make sure she put on something more appropriate than her glum everyday wear. When I looked in her wardrobe I saw she was not exactly spoilt for choice. I tried to persuade her to wear the grey dress but she was adamant it was only for a very special occasion such as a wedding. For a young girl she could be very determined at times. We were left with the black silk dress. I am very fond of black silk. I wear it myself – all the time. Black is a very serviceable colour and silk gives it a lustre and a texture that makes it more flattering than the matt black of mourning. But I am a white-haired widow, a housekeeper past forty, while Jane is scarcely eighteen and as far as I know not in mourning for anyone. I could not understand why she chose clothes that were so gloomy. Eventually I persuaded her to wear a brooch to lighten the effect and with that I had to be satisfied. Once dressed, she followed behind me to the dining room like a tiny fluttering shadow. There we found Mr Rochester resting his injured foot while his dog, Pilot, basked in front of a handsome fire.

As I expected convalescence and discomfort made Mr Rochester even more imperious and unpredictable than usual. He did his best to ignore us when I introduced Jane to him so I found myself making fatuous remarks to fill in the silence. Jane, on the other hand, showed surprising coolness and composure.
What a relief it was when he ordered tea to be brought! Once tea was served Adele took charge of the proceedings, asking about her present and leading Miss Eyre round the room by the hand to show her all the delightful ornaments.

I retreated to a sofa with my knitting and watched from the corner of my eye. As I expected, Mr Rochester decided to interrogate his new governess. He sent Adele to play with Pilot and bent his formidable attention on Miss Eyre. She withstood it very well, responding without embarrassment to his orders. Some of the things they said, in all apparent seriousness, about little men in green were beyond me but I spoke up to support Jane when he asked who had recommended her. I told him that she had advertised and that I had answered. Her references were from people of standing in a town over a hundred miles away. He seemed content and did not take it amiss that she had no connections in the immediate neighbourhood.

My master decided to put Jane through her paces. He sent her to the piano but her playing did not impress him. He demanded to see her paintings and seemed to find them interesting. Suddenly it was nine o'clock and he was rebuking her for letting Adele stay up so late. When we left I was not sure that Jane had passed whatever test it was that he had set for her.

Later that evening Jane came to my room to quiz me about Mr Rochester; she thought him very changeable and abrupt. I fudged my answers, though I did let it drop that Mr Rochester was the younger son and that he had broken with his family and gone abroad. In the end she accepted my vague talk of family troubles and the gloominess of Thornfield Hall as reasons for his infrequent visits and abrupt departures. I refused to be pressed further on the subject. It went against the grain to be so niggardly with the truth to Jane but my bible oath stood between me and telling her what she really wanted to know.

To my relief Mr Rochester did not send word that he found Miss Eyre unsatisfactory and that I should immediately look for a replacement. Indeed there were signs that he approved of her. One evening when he was entertaining he sent for her drawings to show the dinner guests. After his visitors had left, he summoned Adele and Miss Eyre; Adele's long-delayed present had arrived from Paris. Soon afterwards he rang for me to join them. Whether my presence was required to entertain Adele or to act as chaperone I cannot be sure. Mr Rochester had not previously shown much regard for the proprieties.

I enjoyed watching Adele explore the contents of her parcel. In silent concentration she peeled away the silvery tissue paper and inspected each item with the seriousness of a connoisseur. Short bursts of talk from Mr Rochester travelled across the rich Turkey carpet to the alcove where I sat. Mr Rochester was so voluble I thought he must have taken too much wine but my attention was focused on Adele. At the bottom of her box was a pink silk frock of such exquisiteness it could have come only from Paris. Her little face lit up in ecstasy. Her expression told me it was imperative that the dress be tried on and I nodded my approval. She scampered off, her feet pattering her out of the room, taking her to Sophie and some serious time at her toilette.

Without other occupation my attention was drawn to the conversation taking place between Mr Rochester and Miss Eyre. His desire to dominate showed in his posture; he stood with his arm leaning against the mantelpiece while Jane was seated directly in front of him. The subject of their conversation was not clear to me but it was evidently of a weighty nature. Whatever it was they discussed, it was apparent she would not let him bully her. He commanded her to speak and she stayed dumb. I would not have dared to defy him so openly. When
he had persuaded her to speak I distinctly heard her inform him in no uncertain manner that he was both ‘human' and ‘fallible'. True though the words are of all of us I would not dare to say them to my master's face. He would engulf me in an avalanche of thunderous rage. Miss Eyre, however, escaped censure. Perhaps as a result of the few respectful ‘sirs' she sprinkled among her answers.

Adele, in her pink dress, arrived like spring after a cold winter. She twirled and curtsied and gave her thanks with style and polish, an unconscious contrast to Jane's monochrome solemnity.

Mr Rochester spent the whole of the short month of February with us; he had never spent so long at Thornfield Hall before. He blamed the slow healing of his sprained ankle: I thought he had another motive. I've confessed that I found Adele enchanting and so I easily convinced myself that my master too had fallen under her spell. Why else would a short-tempered and irascible old bachelor summon a seven-year-old girl to his fireside every evening?

Mr Rochester was nearly forty. He was at the time of life that men leave off sowing their wild oats and begin to wonder what memorials they will leave behind them. Most men of my master's age and means were married and had families. They were looking to the future, thinking of their sons' inheritance and their daughters' dowries. My master had proved skittish about marriage. He had paid court to the Honourable Blanche, and then at the moment when all expected an engagement to be announced he had fled to the continent. Marriage might
not be to his taste but he had a duty to provide an heir for the Rochester estate. Society expected it of him.