Thornfield Hall (24 page)

‘Bigamy. You can get sent to prison for it. But not for long. Magistrates think having more than one wife is punishment enough. Chap in Harrogate just got caught. Mind you he did have three wives and was busy acquiring his fourth.' Sam
grinned at the idea of four wives. ‘Makes me glad I was a sailor. One in every port.'

‘That reminds me. Where is Sophie this evening?' Old John gave Sam a knowing leer.

I wasn't having that sort of talk so I quickly spoke up. ‘She is with Adele. In theory she knows nothing about our mysterious lady. She was not here when we took the oath. Unless someone has been blabbing.' I gave Sam a significant look. I was pretty sure Sam and Sophie shared more than the initial letter of their first names. I turned to Old John. ‘What do you think about this?'

‘You know I'm a bit of a free thinker. Not a churchgoer at all. Well, for what it's worth, here are my thoughts. A man in master's position needs a wife. No disrespect to Miss Bertha but she's not a fitting wife for a gentleman of standing. The way I see it he should marry Miss Blanche, if that's what he wants. There's no way he could get his hands on her without a wedding. She's a fine horsewoman but she has a mighty wilful way with her. He'll need a tight rein on her. That's his lookout. I don't see why a few words from a clergyman years ago in Jamaica should stop him. It's a lot of mumbo jumbo.'

‘And Mary. What about you?'

‘It may be mumbo jumbo but it's how the world works. You're married. You stay together. Through thick and thin.' She gave Old John a savage look. ‘You don't think I'd be here now if I'd not taken that vow. I'd be over the hills and far away while you were still mixing bran mash for your beloved horses. I haven't lived with the smell of horse shit for years from choice. I did it cause I have to. It's my duty.'

Old John's jaw sagged and his eyes opened wide. Mary was usually the silent partner, loyally nodding her agreement to her husband's views. She patted his lean arm and smiled at him. ‘It's good to give you a shock every now and then.'

‘And, Leah, what do you think?'

‘To be honest I think that Miss Blanche is a nasty piece of work. I wouldn't choose to have her as mistress here. I saw the bruises on Martha's arms. I don't know what the master sees in her but I do know that Miss Bertha has been very unhappy. And I can't help noticing that now she really only goes wild when Mr Rochester is here. Seems to me, married or not, they'd be better off living hundreds of miles apart.'

I saw the glimmering of a solution on the horizon. The youngest and most inexperienced of us had provided an answer. I patted the bible in my pocket and tried to remember where I would find the phrase ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings'.

Sam had the last word. ‘Don't forget, Mrs Fairfax, that a husband must support his wife. Remember that, young John.' He wagged his finger at him across the table. ‘Once you are married you must put clothes on her back and food in her mouth – and do the same for all the children.' When the laughter died away Sam continued, ‘To be fair to Mr Rochester he has provided for her. He's kept Thornfield Hall going and paid our wages all these years. Generous wages at that.'

There were murmurs of agreement round the table. I was not as whole-hearted as the others in my acquiescence. He'll still have change from the thirty thousand pounds, was my uncharitable thought. I had kept that snippet of information to myself. Thirty thousand pounds is a lot of money and people can be very silly when they get greedy.

‘Think on,' Sam continued, wagging his finger in the air, ‘if this secret gets out, we are dead ducks. Master has nothing to lose. He can send Bertha to an asylum, close up Thornfield Hall and go and live it up on the continent with one of his French tarts. What'll happen to us then? We'll be out on the street.
We'll not find it easy to get places round here. Scandal sticks.'

Now there was something we could all agree on. We decided that we should continue to call our upstairs lady Miss Bertha, and not Mrs Rochester. We should keep a tight hold on our lips and be especially careful when Martha arrived. It would be easy to forget that she knew nothing of Miss Bertha and she had not taken the oath of silence as we had done.

I reminded them that Mr Rochester had said only that he was buying a coach for his bride. No formal announcement of an engagement had been made. I warned them that he had talked of hiring some new servants. No doubt the Honourable Blanche expected to be mistress of a considerable establishment. So far it was all talk. Our jobs were safe as long as we kept the oath. The secret we nursed gave us security for the moment. There was no need yet for us to think of breaking our silence.

Later I sat in my room alone and thumbed through my little bible looking for the saying about babes and sucklings. I could not find it. I think it must be in the prayer book. When I look in my bible, especially the Book of Proverbs, I usually find a saying that encourages me to do exactly what I was thinking of doing. They are such useful phrases to trot out in your defence or to ease your conscience. ‘Pride goeth before destruction and an haughty spirit before a fall' suited my purpose very nicely; Mr Rochester was a very haughty man. I also liked ‘He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.' There was some very guilty money in Thornfield Hall. I wasn't quite so happy with the warning that he who digs a pit will fall into it. That was exactly what I intended to do: dig a pit and watch Mr Rochester fall into it.

SUMMER

1832

G
RACE HELPED ME REFINE MY PLAN. SHE EASED MY
conscience by pointing out that we were mere bystanders to the unfolding events. It was only sensible to prepare for what seemed likely to happen. The decision to set the wheel of fate turning was not ours. It was Mr Rochester's. On her instructions I wrote to her son at the Grimsby Asylum. We had questions only a lawyer could answer and Grimsby seemed sufficiently distant to keep our enquiries in the strictest confidence. We avoided the local solicitors. They were too much in debt to the Rochester domain to be trusted with our secret.

Young Mr Poole arrived under the pretence that he was visiting Miss Bertha and changing her medicine. Bertha's gnawing of Mr Mason was common knowledge among the servants. Fresh medicine reassured them that she would not be allowed to develop a taste for human flesh. I was confident that no one suspected the real purpose of his visit.

The three of us sat in my room out of earshot of Bertha, who had returned to her regular harmless occupation of making doll's clothes. Leah was keeping her company on the third floor.

‘You asked about divorce,' young Mr Poole began. ‘A very rare occurrence. Almost unheard of. As I understand it a wife must prove that the husband has committed adultery and – I stress the word “and” – various other unspeakable crimes.'

‘Such as?'

He blushed, reluctant to use such words in the presence of his mother. ‘Violence, beatings, er bestiality, er sodomy?' He looked enquiringly at us. We shook our heads.

‘It is easier for a husband to divorce his wife. Adultery alone is enough.' Again he looked at us.

‘Go on,' I said. Mr Rochester might really believe his wife had been unfaithful to him. He could cite the dark-skinned baby, though he would not be able to produce the boy as proof.

‘It's a possibility then?'

We nodded and young Mr Poole went on to explain that first the husband must bring a case against the offending man for what is called ‘criminal conversation'. When that has been proved he can get a private bill through Parliament. The costs would be more than four hundred pounds. Would the sum be an insuperable obstacle to Mr Rochester?

Grace and I shook our heads. The cost was not the problem. The offending man was. A proud man like Mr Rochester would never publicly admit that his place in the marriage bed had been taken by anyone. To admit that his place had been taken by a black slave was unthinkable.

‘So we are left with judicial separation. Both parties are free of their marital duties. They can live apart.' Our eyes lit up. ‘They are not free to marry another, though.' Gloom descended on us again. Baroness Ingram's daughter would not accept the despised position of mistress.

‘Then of course there is Chancery but it is notorious for delay.'

‘What is Chancery?'

‘It is an arm of the law to enforce trusts. Wealthy families draw up legal agreements at the time of the marriage to protect their daughter and their daughter's property. They specify arrangements for money in the case of disagreement between husband and wife. Especially when a dowry is paid. Sometimes that money is kept to provide an income for the widow. A jointure, I believe it is called. I take it no such trust was drawn up in this case.'

‘Not as far as we know. If it had it would be done in Jamaica.'

Grace frowned. ‘Her scoundrel of a brother would have used it, if it existed.'

‘Then we are left with the last tool in the box. Persuasion. Let the parties come to an agreement. It is the best solution.' Grace's son smiled at us benevolently as if we were the naughty children and he was the all-seeing parent.

Grace and I looked at each other. I raised my eyebrows in query to Grace.

She gave an enigmatic smile. ‘We can be very persuasive.' The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees; she spoke so chillingly. I did not give much for Mr Rochester's chances.

‘Tell us more about trusts, Mr Poole. I think I can see a way forward.'

We sent young Mr Poole back to his lawyer with very precise instructions. He was not optimistic about a speedy result. Lawyers were notoriously slow, he warned us. ‘Put salt on his tail,' Grace said.

‘That's for killing slugs,' I protested.

‘Exactly,' said Grace. ‘If lawyers cannot find a better way to rescue men and women from unhappy marriages, as far as I am concerned, that's exactly what they are. Slugs.'

The long days of summer were full of arrivals. Letters came from our lawyer in Grimsby; Grace and I pored over their contents in stolen minutes. We had to dig into our savings to pay the lawyer's fee for what at times felt like a desperate gamble. Mr Rochester arrived with the new carriage, a splendid affair with purple cushions. He made jokes about it suiting Queen Boadicea. I was not sure Miss Blanche would appreciate his comparing her with the warlike queen of a primitive tribe but I could see Mr Rochester's point; there was something regal and ferocious about the woman.

He was full of strange fancies and enthusiasms at this time. He insisted on hiring more servants. As if I did not have my hands full with the staff I already had. I assumed he wanted to increase the household in preparation for his bride. The Honourable Miss Ingram, the daughter of a baron, would expect to live on a grand scale. So we acquired two new footmen – one of them very handsome – an extra housemaid and some kitchen maids to help Mary. I slipped Martha onto the books as a laundry maid.

Then Martha arrived from Ingram Park; her condition was obvious to the most casual glance. I now had two expectant mothers on my hands. The gentry are notorious for turning out servant girls near their time. If a child is born on the premises it is generally thought that the master of the house, or the son, is responsible. It was imperative that I kept Martha away from the grand rooms and confined her to the basement and the back stairs to keep her out of the sight of Mr Rochester. Generous he might be but he would not take kindly to my hiring a girl so close to her time. From the size of her there was scarcely two
months' work left in her before she would be delivered. And then what would I do with her? I racked my brains but could come up with no solution.

Not only did I have to keep Martha secret from Mr Rochester, I also had to keep the third floor a secret from Martha. This left me with very few places where she could work. I tried her with Mary in the kitchen but even the kind and endlessly patient Mary could not bear her. ‘It's not just that she's slapdash and lets the milk boil over,' Mary explained. ‘She keeps talking about Ingram Park. “At Ingram Park they have three choices at lunch. The baroness likes her beef well done. At Ingram Park they have strawberries in December.”' Mary imitated Martha's bossy voice. ‘You'd think she'd like to forget about the place, considering what's happened to her there. Wait till her pains are on her. She'll be calling down curses on Ingram Hall and all its inhabitants.'

The third arrival was Miss Eyre. I welcomed her back as I would a daughter. Adele too was pleased to see her. On the first evening of her return Mr Rochester came to my room and found us grouped together by the fire in a ring of golden peace. He bestowed upon us the rare favour of a smile as he gazed at us. It made me hopeful that he might keep Adele on at Thornfield Hall after his marriage.

In the weeks that followed he summoned Adele and Jane frequently to keep him company. He would insist on my presence to act as chaperone and to entertain Adele, which was always a pleasure for me. Miss Eyre seemed sad in her spirits and would ask me nearly every day if there was news of his marriage. She was as anxious on the subject as I was. And with good reason; both our futures hung in the balance. We both feared that Adele would be shipped off to school when Miss Blanche arrived; that haughty madam seemed unlikely to tolerate even such a small rival.