Thornfield Hall Page 20

  ‘That won’t be difficult,’ Grace assured her.

  When I left Grace and Bertha I hesitated at the foot of the stairs. I was not sure if Martha had come down from the attic; collecting the washing was a job she could spin out for hours. Serve her right, I thought as I locked the door. Later I found out that I had locked her in. As usual she turned my error into an excuse to avoid work. She spent the afternoon taking her ease on the four-poster bed and reading to Bertha.

  A COUNTRY WEDDING

  1832

  MR ROCHESTER WAS IN AN AGONY OF impatience to be married. We saw him cross off the days on the calendar with mounting glee. First we servants had our own red-letter day on the calendar: the wedding of John and Leah. They chose to be married on a Wednesday as that was their half day. They asked me and Old John to be witnesses.

  Unlike the general run of bridegrooms John grew calmer and happier the closer the wedding day came. Mr Rochester’s agent had offered him the tenancy of a small farm about thirty miles away. If he made a success of it there were two more farms close by that might become available to him. I’d given a show of delighted surprise when Leah told me and said I thought she would make an excellent farmer’s wife. They were keen to move to their new home as soon as possible so that their baby could be born there.

  I wore my best black silk frock for the wedding and tried to spruce up Old John for the occasion – with limited success. Mr Wood made a point of briskly wafting the sleeves of his surplice to disperse the smell of horse that emanated from the old coachman and pervaded the sanctity of the holy place. Once Old John had fulfilled his role of giving the bride away he was directed to sit in a distant pew. I felt my dislike of Mr Wood grow faster than bread dough as he gabbled impatiently through the wedding service, scarcely giving John time to make his vows.

  The words ‘till death us do part’ gave me pause for thought. I had said those words when I’d married my husband and I meant them at the time. Our years together had been too few to test my resolution. How would I have felt after twenty, thirty, forty years? How would I have felt if he had gone mad, or flogged me, or beaten our children? On reflection I decided that the terms of the marriage contract were spectacularly ferocious.

  When Mr Wood warned that those whom God had joined no man should put asunder he failed to convince me. The promptness with which he let go of John’s and Leah’s hands, and the speed with which he turned on his heels and raced from the church, left me feeling that a bureaucratic procedure had been performed, not some miraculous transformation. The clerk, John Green, took over the congratulating of the happy couple and the completion of the marriage certificate. Mr Wood had left a blank one already signed for the purpose.

  I watched as John and Leah kissed shyly in public for the first time. There was ample evidence as John leaned forward over Leah’s stomach so as to reach her lips, that this was not their first contact; they had been busy in private. The words parroted by Mr Wood were no more than official recognition of an accomplished fact. John and Leah had made themselves one flesh months ago; the world was just catching up with them. This thought cheered me considerably. I felt much better about letting Mr Wood perform a bigamous marriage.

  The wedding breakfast was to take place in the evening, when we could entrust Mr Rochester to the capable hands of Miss Eyre. Before then I had to take tea with Miss Eyre and Adele. These were not always happy occasions. Jane was making enquiries about schools and Adele was fretting about her future. Miss Eyre could do little to reassure her; she did not think that dolls would be allowed, it was unlikely that pink frocks would conform to the regulations and as for taking your maid with you… That was unheard of!

  I could find no words of comfort for Adele. Neither the presence of Sophie nor visits to Thornfield Hall could be promised as future compensation for her immediate suffering. Mr Rochester intended to leave the Hall immediately after his wedding, never to return. He planned to depart in his new coach with the last of the carriage horses. Old John and Mary would then retire with Mesrour to the manor house at Ferndean. John and Leah would take up the tenancy of their farm. Sam was keeping very quiet and Sophie was staying close to him. Knowing Sam I guessed he’d already got his hands on his sweetener, probably paid in bank notes by the agent with a nudge and wink. They would pretend it was for some disreputable bit of male high spirits that Mr Rochester was paying Sam to keep concealed from the bride.

  Meanwhile Grace, Bertha and I waited for the papers to be signed and the thirty thousand pounds to be transferred to the trust. I could not think of leaving Thornfield Hall until I was happy about the arrangements for Adele. I suspected that I would be left to handle that painful procedure. Also I would have to close down the Hall. Perhaps even arrange for it to be sold.

  Then there was the staff to be dealt with. Mary had taken to her bed with the rheumatics and I’d had to hire a temporary replacement. There were other new members of staff whom Mr Rochester had hired as part of his pretence of being enamoured of Blanche. Sometimes I would go into the servants’ hall at mealtimes and I would not recognize many of them. They would all have to be given notice and paid off and they would want references. I felt tired just thinking about the work ahead of me. Those were just my official duties. There was also my unofficial one to poor Martha.

  The evening of John and Leah’s marriage I put away all these worries and made merry in the servants’ hall. Mary had struggled out of her bed to make desserts for the happy couple. The new cook had done them proud with a huge ham. I made sure there was enough ale for the men but not too much. We still had a secret to keep. I would have been more liberal if the trust papers had been signed and the money handed over. I lived in dread of the secret of Bertha’s identity slipping out at the last moment. Drink loosens the tongue, especially the tongue of a bridegroom when his friends ply him with ale.

  I never really looked at Martha, just as I never really listened to her. She contrived to irritate me so much that the less attention I paid her the better. That night at Leah’s wedding feast I sat across the table from Martha. I saw only her head and shoulders and not her distracting bump of a belly. What I saw gave me a turn. Her face was swollen and discoloured; her whole head seemed to have grown several sizes larger. I thought she must have been drinking. I could scarcely blame her if she drank until she fell unconscious under the table; she must so wish to forget her circumstances. Perhaps her time was nearer than we thought. I knew the daft moppet had no dates to help her work out her probable time.

  Old friends and new faces united to send Leah and John to their first shared room that night, with much coarse laughter and many rude jokes about shutting stable doors and all their troubles being little ones. This was the only part of the celebrations that I kept aloof from; after all, I would be giving notice to most of them in the near future.

  The atmosphere at the servants’ early breakfast next day was very far from jolly. Leah’s face was flushed and angry and Martha was in tears. A weeping Martha was nothing new but an angry Leah was something else. It transpired that Martha had burst in on the couple in the course of their wedding night. John and Leah had shooed her out and sent her back to her own room. Martha insisted she had no memory of the event. She had woken in her own bed and claimed to have stayed there. She was unaware of her nocturnal wanderings.

  I took these night-time ramblings seriously. I could not risk her straying onto the second floor, perhaps even into Mr Rochester’s or Miss Eyre’s bedroom. So I persuaded Grace to let her sleep on the third storey in the room beyond hers. There we could keep her confined at night by locking the door at the foot of the stairs. It seemed to be fated that the third floor of Thornfield Hall was always to have an inhabitant with wild and uncontrolled ways. Now that Bertha was so well-behaved, Martha had taken on that role.

  Grace reminded me to arrange for a midwife. She thought Martha might be due any time. The livid colour of the girl’s face was not a good sign. Grace had seen swollen purple faces before and s
ometimes the ending was not happy. ‘Often the baby comes early but dies. Sometimes the mother dies. Sometimes she recovers afterwards. It is as though there is a battle between mother and baby—’ Abruptly she stopped talking.

  Martha had appeared with her empty clothes basket; she had been hanging clothes to dry in the attic. For a noisy galumphing creature she could slide quietly into earshot when you didn’t want her.

  I told her that I would send word to the midwife the next day. Grace tapped her forehead. She had just remembered something. ‘When you do, ask her if she knows of anyone who is looking for a wet nurse.’

  Martha squealed in protest at the words ‘wet nurse’, her face twisted in a grimace of disgust. ‘You mean me! Me be a wet nurse! What a horrible idea. I’m not going to do that. Never, never, never.’

  Grace squared up to the shrieking girl. ‘It is good work. You have a roof over your head. You are well-fed. The other mother wants good milk for her child. You get to keep your own baby. One child on each side.’ Grace demonstrated with her hands. ‘No problem.’

  Horror distorted Martha’s swollen face even further. ‘I feel sick just thinking about it. It’s like being a cow.’

  Grace leant over Martha and wagged her finger in her face. ‘Cattle have a good life. They are housed and fed. You will find that a girl with a baby has very few choices about the way she makes her living. You can have a sweet, clean, lovable little creature suck your breast with his toothless gums or you can have a smelly, hairy creature with a belly hanging down to his knees lift your skirts and poke his grubby manhood in your fanny or in any other hole he fancies sticking it.’ I had never heard Grace so passionate. When she had finished she straightened her cap, smoothed her apron and recovered her habitual calm. ‘I don’t mean to be unkind, Martha. You have to think about your future – and your baby’s.’

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ Martha tossed her head. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘So that’s all right then. As long as you don’t plan to go to Baroness Ingram and tell her she has a grandchild. Oootchy coootchy coo. Isn’t he lovely? Won’t he make a nice little baronet? And wouldn’t it be lovely if your son married me?’

  Martha said nothing. Her face said it all.

  Two days before his wedding Mr Rochester summoned me, Grace and Bertha to the library. At his side stood a distinguished-looking gentleman with silver hair and a neatly trimmed beard; he was everyone’s picture of a family lawyer. But he was not the usual Rochester family lawyer. By his accent he had been specially imported from across the Pennines to carry out this task. There was no risk of his being indiscreet with a local colleague. The Wars of the Roses only finished yesterday to many people round here.

  He took us through the documents very carefully, explaining that Grace and I were to be trustees for one Bertha Mason. Bertha bowed to him very civilly at the sound of her name. She sat quietly through the whole proceedings, her eyes fixed on the floor or the lawyer or the view through the window – anywhere, in short, where Mr Rochester was not.

  The lawyer explained that Grace and I were to administer the money with care and diligence and provide a home for Bertha. In time we could appoint further suitable people as trustees depending on where we decided to live, so that the future of the said Bertha Mason could be secure. The funds for the trust were on deposit at the Bank of Knaresborough. They would be available for withdrawal in two days’ time.

  We signed the deed of trust. I have to give Mr Rochester credit for behaving frankly and fairly once we had screwed him to the sticking post but I noted the familiar Rochester caution with money. The thirty thousand pounds would not be ours until the day of the wedding. We gave a respectful curtsy and withdrew.

  Dignity and restraint stayed with us in the corridor. We behaved as three middle-aged and respectable ladies normally behave. When we reached the third floor matters took a very different turn. We kissed the legal papers, we laughed and fell into our chairs; we loosened our stays and unpinned our hair. Grace poured out the porter. We were free, independent and soon would be wealthy. We would have sufficient means to live very comfortable lives. We need call no man master again.

  The only blight on our happiness was the arrival of Martha, breathless and panting from climbing the stairs with her basket of washing, her face swollen and purple and her belly heaving with a child she did not want. She was a poignant reminder of how unequal fate could be to women. Grace gave her a glass of porter and told her it would help her sleep.

  Perhaps we put too much reliance on the soporific effects of porter; it certainly made me sleep like a baby. I was so content and carefree that I forgot to lock the door to the stairs to the third floor. I was growing careless as my plan came into fruition. Only one full day lay between me and the day of the wedding, when Bertha’s dowry and her life would be returned to her. The day passed without incident except that Miss Eyre, normally so calm and composed, must have had an attack of wedding nerves. She did not want to spend the night before her wedding alone and went to sleep with Adele and Sophie in the nursery. No doubt there were many jokes in the servants’ hall and warnings to Sam to curtail his night-time wanderings.

  AN EVENTFUL DAY IN JULY

  1832

  GRACE WOKE ME BEFORE SIX ON THE MORNING of Mr Rochester’s wedding day with some unexpected news: Martha had gone into labour. Trust her to choose such an inconvenient moment. ‘No need to send for the midwife just yet,’ Grace assured me. ‘First babies take a long time. She is fussing and groaning already but Bertha is with her. Martha would try the patience of a saint but Bertha is very kind to her. I think poor Bertha has suffered so much it makes her very tender to other people’s pain.’

  ‘If only Martha had waited a day. Our funds would be secure and we could do something for the silly creature and her unfortunate baby. I dread Mr Rochester or Miss Eyre finding out that we have been keeping her here. It feels so underhand.’

  ‘Serves him right. He kept Bertha locked away for years. That’s what I call underhand.’ Grace took hold of my hands and stared me in the face. She spoke forcefully to me. ‘Four hours from now the happy couple will be gone. They’ll be bowling along in their new coach and Martha will be able to scream as loud as she likes. They will not hear her.’

  Invigorated by her words and her confidence I made a quick visit to the third floor, where I found Bertha sitting calmly next to Martha. She was bathing her face and hands and singing one of the strange soothing songs she must have learnt as a child in Jamaica. Bertha was still in her white nightgown but her black hair was smoothed back into a neat plait. Martha writhed on the bed, her dark hair wild and tangled about her swollen face. In her pain she cursed and swore; she used words that would have made a stable hand blush. If someone had asked you to point at the madwoman in the room you would undoubtedly have chosen the one in the bed.

  My regular household duties soon called me away. In honour of the occasion I put on the black silk dress I had worn for John and Leah’s wedding. How strange life is. You do not go to a wedding for years and then two come along in quick succession. Breakfast was served in the dining room but the groom had no appetite. He paced about like a caged lion and kept sending to see if Miss Eyre was dressed.

  Sophie was to carry out the task of preparing the bride, although I doubted the wedding clothes Miss Eyre had chosen would meet the French maid’s exacting standards. Miss Eyre’s dress was very plain, though the colour was flattering and the veil was exquisite. Sophie must have lamented the modesty of Miss Eyre’s ambition in the matter of dress. What a beauty the French girl would have made of her if she had been given a free hand.

  When he wasn’t sending messages to chivvy his bride Mr Rochester was sending one of his new footmen to the church to check that Mr Wood was there. The footman soon returned and reported that the parson was putting his surplice on in the vestry. I could not help noticing that on this occasion the clergyman was treating the bridal couple with more respect than he had given to Jo
hn and Leah. A troublesome thought niggled at the back of my mind. I did not know the name of this new – and remarkably handsome – footman. Was he to be the next John? It annoyed me that I could not recall his given name. I dismissed the matter from my mind. I had more important concerns that day and soon the handsome footman would be away from Thornfield Hall, bouncing about behind Mr Rochester’s new carriage.

  I waited in the hall hoping to have a word with Miss Eyre before she left for church. It was not to be. Mr Rochester held her by the wrist and positively dragged her past me. There was no opportunity to wish her joy or tell her how well she looked. As she passed I noticed that she was not wearing the handsome veil that Mr Rochester had bought for her but a plain simple square of fine lawn.

  As soon as possible I went back upstairs to check on Martha. The scene that met my eyes was a copy of the one I had witnessed earlier. The only change was that Martha’s groans were louder. The midwife had sent word that she would come in the afternoon; her services were unlikely to be needed earlier. ‘Should we send for Carter, the surgeon?’ I asked Grace.

  She gave me one of her withering looks. ‘Only if she is having a foal.’

  A glance at my watch told me that the wedding party would soon be returning. Again I descended the stairs and from force of habit I locked the door at the foot of the staircase. I cannot tell you how glad I was later that I had remembered to carry out that small routine task. I collected Adele, who had spent much longer dressing than Miss Eyre did, and Sophie. We trooped down to the hall to greet the happy couple on their return. Leah joined us there. ‘What became of that lovely veil?’ she wondered. Leah had been watching from behind a door when Jane came down. She tried to mime her question to Sophie. The only response she received was a shrug of Sophie’s shoulders. Sam’s English lessons had not proved very successful.

  My first inkling that something was wrong came when I saw three gentlemen struggling to keep up with Mr Rochester as he raced up the drive with Miss Eyre, or Mrs Rochester as I should call her, dragged along in his grasp. One was Mr Wood in his surplice, the other two gentlemen were formally dressed. I guessed that Mr Rochester had called them to be witnesses. At the door he dismissed the carriage that had been waiting to take him and his bride on their wedding journey. Automatically we advanced to greet the wedding party to congratulate them in the conventional way. I saw then his face was thunderous and livid with rage. He shouted at us, ‘To the right about – every soul!’ And told us our wedding congratulations were fifteen years too late. My heart dropped like a stone. The secret of his marriage to Bertha must be out.