Thornfield Hall Page 17

  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

  GRACE 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.

  If Adele left there would be no occupation for Jane; she had already considered putting another advertisement in the newspaper but Mr Rochester had persuaded her in the fiercest terms against it. He had made her promise not to advertise, insisting that he would find her another place when the time came. So Jane lived in a kind of limbo, waiting for the axe to fall and powerless to choose her own future. Adele and I were glad of her presence. She kept Mr Rochester occupied of an evening and diverted his attention from the failings of the servants and the less-than-perfect household arrangements.

  Thornfield Hall was not a smooth-running well-oiled machine anymore. We had been hard put to find suitable staff. ‘Scrapings from the bottom of the barrel,’ Old John called our new recruits. The factories were paying higher wages for those adventurous souls prepared to move to town and we were left with a rag-bag of untrained beginners. Some of them had scarcely managed to wash themselves since they were summoned from herding sheep and milking cows. This made much work for my loyal staff, who had to teach the newcomers how to lay a fire or make a bed or explain what a saucer was for. We were divided into two camps – the knowledgeable and the ignorant. On the one hand there were those who had taken the oath, who were privy to the fact that Bertha was indeed Mrs Rochester. On the other hand there were those in a state of complete ignorance of service in general and of Thornfield Hall in particular. They were not likely to show much curiosity about Bertha just yet. And there was Martha, who fitted into neither of these categories. It was a house jangling with nerves, secrets and subterfuges.

  John was upset by the arrival of the new footmen; he feared he was to be replaced. I found him with his head in his hands and all the troubles of the world on his shoulders: Leah, the wedding, the baby and most of all money. ‘I know it’s wicked,’ he confessed, ‘but I do envy my brother. He will have the farm. His own house, his own fields and his own animals! It must be wonderful. I don’t think Leah and I will ever have so much as a cottage to call our own. What if the new missus takes against me and gives me my notice? I’m that bothered with all this I’m all fingers and thumbs and keep dropping things and forgetting what errand master’s sent me on.’

  I patted his shoulder and made reassuring noises. My diagnosis was a bad case of bridegroom’s nerves for both him and Mr Rochester. ‘Don’t forget, John,’ I told him, ‘that you have been trusted with Mr Rochester’s secret and a key to the third floor. The new footmen have not.’

  When Mary banished her from the kitchen, Martha had to work in the laundry. I was not happy about this as it is heavy work for someone in her condition. I consoled myself by remembering how clever Martha was at avoiding work. She would contrive to wash nothing more substantial than a collar and cuffs or a chemise. Although it was June the weather was wet and Martha had to take what little washing she had done to dry on the racks in the attic. This brought her dangerously close to Grace and Bertha.

  As my plan matured in my mind and began to take definite shape I scented the clear air of freedom from all these oaths and secrets and I grew less careful. I made Martha swear on her soon-to-be-born baby’s head not to breathe a word of the existence of the strange lady on the third floor. Naturally I kept the lady’s real identity concealed from her. I told her some cock and bull story about a distant connection of old Mr Rochester, the widow of one of his clerks who used to work in the West Indies. The shock of her husband’s recent death had overcome her and the master had asked us to look after her for a short time. ‘Much as we are looking after you,’ I told her, putting heavy stress on each word to remind her she owed us a debt of gratitude.

  I explained away the fact that the door to the stairs was locked by staying as close to the truth as possible; I blamed the temporarily distraught aunt for starting a fire. Martha asked for a key but I refused it. Grace or John or Leah or myself would unlock the door for her when she needed to hang up the washing and would let her out when she had finished. Grace and I had many important matters to discuss; we did not want Martha free to come at will and loiter about the third storey, eavesdropping.

  Grace was much more comfortable with Martha than I was; my guilt made me prickly and short-tempered with her. By the time she had climbed the stairs with a basket of washing the girl gave a good impression of being exhausted. Grace would invite her in to rest on the big four-poster bed while Bertha sewed. They tried getting her to read aloud but it was not a success. They tried her with sewing but Bertha soon took the needle from her hand. In spite of the clumsiness Bertha took a fancy to Martha and would sit close and quiet by her as if the strange feeling of contentment that comes from carrying a child had spread into her. She abandoned doll’s clothes and started making baby clothes. Between them the madwoman and the reluctant mother-to-be created an oasis of peace in a house of swirling secrets and bitter passions.

  Throughout all these changes and adjustments Grace and I stayed doggedly with our plan. Some might call it a plot. Although Bertha and her welfare were the intended goal, we proceeded in our arrangements without her knowledge or agreement. We justified our high-handed treatment by telling ourselves she could not keep a topic in her head for long and that decisions upset her. ‘Nearer the time,’ Grace would say. ‘We’ll tell her nearer the time.’ We were waiting for an important document and that final necessary ingredient for any enterprise – luck. Then we would be ready to strike.

  Grace’s son brought us the vital document, delivering it himself to ensure it came safely into our hands. He told us that he had a new position near Reading and he had found a s
uitable property nearby. Did he have our permission to rent it? Grace and I dithered. We decided to delay; our hand would be so much stronger once Mr Rochester had announced publicly that he was to marry Miss Ingram.

  Martha had been our sole source of information about what was happening at Ingram Park and she was neither reliable nor up to date. According to Martha, Miss Ingram herself counted the wedding as a certainty. ‘Has she begun buying wedding clothes?’ I asked her, although I had no confidence in the silly baggage’s opinion on anything. Martha claimed that new underclothes had been ordered. I was not convinced. I thought the new young baron would be reluctant to spend money on anything that he could not put on show to the whole world. I needed more proof than a few new chemises.

  As the month progressed the weather changed and we enjoyed day after day of fine warm weather. The hay, always a tricky crop that makes farmers chew their nails with indecision, was safely brought in. Grace and I were anxious to find the right moment to bring our own harvest in. On Midsummer Eve we met in my room late at night and debated how much longer to wait for Mr Rochester to announce his wedding.

  Grace favoured immediate action. ‘It is a good plan. Bertha living away from here. Whether he wants to marry or not. We are not trying to blackmail him, by threatening to expose him as a bigamist.’

  ‘It feels as if we are.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! We are simply putting forward a fair and reasonable solution to what is for him a difficult problem – his wife. She is his problem, not ours. He should be grateful for our help.’ Grace gave a smug smile; she thought her logic unimpeachable.

  I was not so sure. Our solution was a costly one – for Mr Rochester. Old Mr Rochester would spin in his grave at the thought of parting with a penny of the Rochester fortune. My own motive for wanting more certainty was a selfish one. If the plan went wrong there would be no escape route for me. I would be shown the door and would face a chilling future. I would be neither gentry nor servant. I would be a miserable wretch without family or friends.