Twelfth Night at Eyre Hall (13 page)

The rickety wheels rolled over the thin
layer of snow as we approached Eyre Hall. The house did indeed look seasonal,
covered in a white cape. Advent wreaths adorned the windows on the lower floor,
and although there were no candles in the top floor windows, the glare of the
hearths tinged the latticed panes with a warm glow. I smiled, looking forward
to a pleasing conversation, a hearty meal, and a comfortable bed.  

I had received a note from Jane Elliot,
née Eyre, later Rochester, and now Mason, apologising for not coming to my
public reading of
A Christmas Carol
; notwithstanding, she would be
honoured by my visit to Eyre Hall, if I could stop on my way back to London.

I had met Jane some years ago, when she
came to one of my public readings of
Oliver Twist
. She was in London
with her publisher, negotiating the first edition of her first novel, which I
later enjoyed immensely. I had asked her to contribute a short story to
‘All
Year Round’
, and she did so for the Christmas edition.

She wrote a terrifying ghost story of a
malevolent spirit she called the sin–eater, who returned every Christmas to a
village, taking with him the wicked of the souls who had died that year, thus
freeing the descendants of the weight of their sins, and empowering his own
evil being.  

I had subsequently seen her occasionally
at my readings in Yorkshire, as she was not inclined to visit London, and we
had corresponded several times a year. However, I had not been in her company
for some years, until last autumn when she came to London to the presentation
of her second novel. On that occasion, she was keen to visit the squalid alleys
I had described in
Oliver Twist.
She requested I accompany her for a
walk through the streets the Artful Dodger would have marched along on his way
to Fagin’s den. I asked Wilkie to join us, and we had an eventful evening,
visiting the perilous haunts.

She greeted me warmly, bestowing a
sincere embrace and two chaste kisses on my grateful cheeks. When we were first
introduced, I misunderstood her name as Miss Jane Elliot. She laughed and told
me it pleased her to be called by her pen surname, which I have used ever
since.

“I was so looking forward to your visit,
Mr. Dickens. I have missed your pleasant company and I am in need of your wise
advice.”

“It is a pleasure to return to Eyre Hall,
Miss Elliot. You have managed to make this large country house such a
comfortable and welcoming island.”

“I hope you will not be bored with my
company this evening. I fear we shall be quite alone. Almost everyone is away
at New Year’s balls and festivities, and the younger members of the household
are busy with their own amusements.”

“Capital! We can converse and sip brandy
to our heart’s delight.”

“But first some Madeira, and then Cook’s
roast partridge which is impatiently waiting to be savoured.”

“You spoil me, madam. I can think of no
better way to spend an evening, or indeed an entire week.”

“You flatter me, Mr. Dickens, but come,
sit by the hearth and tell me, how was your reading?”

“There were over three thousand people
in the hall, and they thoroughly enjoyed my reading, however the hotel was a
dark and dingy place and my bedroom was small and looked onto an ugly back
street. I had hoped to see your enchanting countryside from the windows.”

“I think you enjoy reading far more than
they do listening, although it is indeed a pleasure to hear you recreate the
eerie voices of the ghosts and the frightened voice of Ebenezer Scrooge! I
should have loved to have been there, but I have been preoccupied and moody.”

“No doubt you will tell me what troubles
you. If I can help…”

“Your presence alone is enough to help.
I am concerned about orphans, as you know.”       

Her second novel was about a young
orphan girl who eventually married a lord and lived happily ever after.
Although I enjoyed her novels, my opinion was that they were too full of
unlikely coincidences and unrealistic happy endings. The authentic cruelty of
life escaped her pen. She knew of my opinion, and although it displeased her,
she was eager to receive my advice.

“But you were an orphan yourself, Miss
Elliot. You must know what it feels like to live in such conditions.”

“I was a very different type of orphan,
Mr. Dickens. I was never physically abused as the children in your novels, and
I was never in a poor house. I never had to lie, or cheat, or commit any type
of crime to have a morsel to eat.”

“Perhaps you do not remember accurately,
or perhaps you created another parallel universe of your own to survive. You
only saw what you wanted to see. Did you not see death? Were you never hungry?
Were you not physically punished? Locked in a room? Ridiculed due to the
clothes you wore? Outcast for not having parents? Ignored for being poor?
Forced to work for nothing or a meagre sum?”

“Perhaps, on occasions, but overall, I
was no doubt a fortunate orphan.”

“There is never any fortune in being an
orphan, Miss Elliot. You were lucky that you had your religion for moral support,
your uncle’s fortune for material support, and that you met and married Mr.
Rochester for social support and love. Without any of these things, you would
have been a poor and miserable orphan. Orphans, who cannot find consolation in
the Bible, or marriage, or material comfort, will crave all three throughout their
lives.

“Were you not alone and desolate in an
alien place? Did you never cry yourself to sleep because you had no one to
embrace you? Was your heart not as chilled as your bones in the endless winter
of your childhood?”

I paused and saw a wisp of recognition in
her melancholic gaze, so I continued.  “I will never forget the months I spent
on my own, while my father and the rest of my family were living in a jail cell
in the Debtor's Prison. I worked in a factory, pasting labels on bottles of
shoe polish to support my family. I lived in a miserable lodging house and
worked long hours in squalid conditions, supervised by cruel masters. I was ten
years old. The loneliness and sense of abandonment sank into my heart. I
honestly think it is impossible to recover from such misery. Do you not agree?”

“I never felt the absolute loneliness
you mention. I had faith and hope, and a belief that my lot would improve if I
led an upright life. I knew that everything would change when I had my own
family.”

“No two people are alike; therefore no
two people react in the same way to the same experiences.”

“Why was Oliver not like Dodger? What made
them different? Was it their nature or their education?”

“A difficult question to answer, and one
which I have often asked myself. I think we both know the answer. Education and
life experiences are vital, but make no mistake, Miss Elliot, we have all
inherited our ancestors’ goodness and ruthlessness. We are descendants of both
Cain and Abel.”

“Fortunately, the evil are outnumbered,
Mr. Dickens.”  

“Religion can help us tip the scales
towards goodness, but remember this, even a dog can be taught the difference
between right and wrong, even without reading the Bible. He knows not to bite
the hand that feeds him, and he knows if he protects his master and obeys, he
will be rewarded, does he not?

 “Religion, if sincere, helps many
people pull through difficult circumstances, but there is a great deal of hypocrisy
and commerce in it today. Look at the repulsive business funerals have become. Surely,
undertakers are the world’s greatest serpents, making money out of death and
decay. There are exorbitantly priced photographs, keepsakes, dressing and
exhibition of the corpse. I will not be part of it.”

“Surely it is a way of rendering tribute
to those we loved?”

“It is a farce, Miss Elliot. A funeral
should be a private and intimate ceremony. I should expressly prohibit the
summoning to my own burial of anybody who was not very near or dear to me. I
will not be dressed up by an undertaker as part of his trade show.”

“But what can you do about it?”

“We cannot change the world, Miss
Elliot, but we can change ourselves and our own intimate circle.”

“How would you govern your funeral?”

“I have emphatically directed that I
should be buried in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner,
at Rochester Cathedral. Have you ever visited, Miss Elliott?” She shook her
head.

“Ah, then you have that experience to
look forward to, my dear. It is a magnificent, Norman building, near Gad’s Hill
Place, my home. Furthermore, no public announcement shall be made of the time
or place of my burial; not more than three plain mourning coaches will be
employed; and those who attend my funeral will wear no scarf, cloak, black bow,
or long hatband. There will be no post–mortem photographs, relics, or other
such revolting absurdity. I trust my executors will respect my wishes.”

“You seem more pessimistic than the last
time we spoke, Mr. Dickens.”

“You are fortunate not to live in London
Miss Elliot. I have seen such extreme cruelty in this city that I often wish I
had never set foot in it. I have reason to be disappointed in a city in which public
hangings are still carried out. Some years ago, I witnessed an execution at
Horsemonger Lane. The spectacle started the night before the execution as the bloodthirsty
crowd gathered. Thieves, low prostitutes, ruffians and vagabonds of every kind,
flocked on to the ground, with every variety of offensive and foul behaviour.
Fightings, faintings, whistlings, brutal jokes of thousands upon thousands of
shameful Londoners.”

“How dreadful. I cannot even imagine
such a sight.”

“The following day, good citizens, like
you and me, pass by as if nothing so inhuman and savage had ever happened in
their beloved capital city.”

 “I have heard public hangings are to be
replaced by hangings within the prisons, in the gallows.”

“You are correct, Miss Elliot. I am
proud to have contributed to that improvement, but I am still not content. We
are part of the greatest Empire the world has ever known. The fact that we
belong to a nation which rules the seven seas and where the sun never sets, yet
we have a criminal and amoral capital, is an unfathomable paradox. Sodom and
Gomorra are school playgrounds in comparison.

“I am proud to be an Englishman, but at
this moment, I am ashamed of being a Londoner. I dream of a criminal, rat and
gin free city, where honest people work hard to make a living and enjoy
pleasant walks along a clean riverbank. It is my wish that the streets along
which Chaucer, Gower, Shakespeare, and Johnson walked will be an example of
civility and progress.”        

“Are you against capital punishment, Mr.
Dickens? What of murderers? Child murderers for example?”

“I have been blessed with ten children,
Miss Elliot, and nine have survived. I could not imagine being without a single
one of them. When my baby daughter Dora died before her first year of life, I
was devastated. It is natural for a parent, and indeed any animal to love their
offspring above anything else, is it not? What kind of desperation, I ask you,
would make a mother abandon her child? What kind of indifference would lead a
father to ignore his offspring? What kind of laws, religion, or political
leaders will turn a blind eye and allow this to happen? I am against a society
that kills its babies because they cannot feed them. Who is guilty? The mother?
The father? The person who starves the baby to death? The law that does
nothing? The state that abandons women and children to their unhappy plight?”

I waited for her reaction before asking
the most challenging question. Her furrowed brow alerted me to her distress,
but I continued. “Who are we to hang for the crime if we do nothing to avoid
it?”

“I am speechless. I live a comfortable
and sheltered life at Eyre Hall, Mr. Dickens. When I listen to you speak, I
could easily imagine we live in different countries. There is so much still to
do to improve our country.”

“Not long ago a gin–addicted mother sold
her child’s clothes to a pawn broker and abandoned her to die unclothed in the
gutters of London. The infant was found flowing with the sewage into the
Thames. The mother was hanged, but the passers–by who walked past the child,
the man who paid her a penny and fathered the child on a street corner, the
pawnbroker who gave her the money to buy the gin, and the barman who sold her
the gin, are walking freely, as decent members of society.”

“I am ashamed of my fellow men,” she
said firmly.

“I am afraid, my dear Miss Elliott, that
feeling shame will not prevent these events from happening.”

I ignored her distressed expression and
continued my shocking account of London child murderers.

“I read some despairing news in the
press this morning. The day before yesterday, New Year’s Day, the very day I
left London, a dreadful child serial killer was discovered. A woman who had
killed over nineteen babies was herself murdered in her house in Brixton.
According to her accomplice, who survived, the culprit was a vicar from Scotland;
no doubt, he had been made aware of her crimes by someone whose child she had killed.
This heartless demon offered to look after the babies or find adoptive families
in exchange for money, but instead she killed them by starving them, or by
choking them to death with dressmakers’ tape. She later put their lifeless and
innocent bodies in cardboard boxes in her cellar, where they were discovered.
However the worst of it is that no doubt there are more such barbarians in
London.”