Thornfield Hall Read online

  ‘Who knows? You just hold on to that thought, Alice Fairfax. You are not the only one to blame. For a start, there’s Martha herself, and then there’s your beloved Mr Rochester and his careless ways with candles. He started the fire.’ She wagged her finger at me like a school ma’am pressing a lesson home.

  I lay back on the pillows and pondered her advice. ‘You must show me that piece of paper Martha signed some time.’ I leant across to pick up my tiny bible. ‘We have quite an interesting collection of documents now.’ I passed Grace the copy of Bertha Rochester’s death certificate. She whistled through her teeth. ‘Better not make a sound like that in the drawing room when there are guests,’ I warned her.

  ‘So Bertha Rochester is officially dead. Long live Bertha Mason.’ Grace straightened her cap and thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think we need bother Bertha with that piece of information.’

  ‘She might turn snappish.’

  Grace laughed. Not the unearthly ghoulish laughter she had used at Thornfield Hall to warn Bertha of approaching danger. It was a warm full-throated chuckle.

  POSTSCRIPT

  1833

  BY THE NEW YEAR MY HEALTH HAD RECOVERED. It was with a mixture of trepidation and delight that I looked forward to life in my new home in Berkshire. For our plan to work our disappearance from Yorkshire had to be both secret and complete. Now that it was thought that Bertha was dead it was imperative that our whereabouts should not be traced. Even here I keep the details hidden; I am still wary of being found.

  Neighbours had called and left cards for Grace and Bertha when they first arrived. In their ignorance of the conventions of the gentry they simply ignored them. As soon as I was well enough I remedied this mistake and called on neighbouring families. Bertha and Grace were very puzzled by the fact that what were described as ‘morning calls’ were always made in the afternoon.

  Not everyone returned my visit but we were soon acquainted with some very pleasant people; the presence of a baby in a house always speeds up the making of friends. Bertha and I are now generally accepted as gentry. Grace, they are not so sure about. The fact that her son is a medical man provides her with a quick varnish of middle-class respectability. Our sober behaviour and handsome income have added depth to the illusion.

  Grace is her usual inscrutable self. Her warning about former servants making bad mistresses has not come true. On the whole she leaves the management of the servants to me. Her greatest pleasure is to have her own newspaper. A small boy brings one of the London papers to the house. As soon as it has cooled after the housemaid has ironed out the creases, it is put at Grace’s place on the breakfast table. She loves the cracking sound as she opens out the pages and knows that she is the first to read them. For myself, I miss the good old Yorkshire Herald.

  When she is not reading her newspaper Grace still spends most of her time with Bertha. They both love to go out to take the air in their own carriage. After years of being confined to the third floor, only venturing out in darkness or behind a black veil, they delight in ordering the horses to be harnessed to the brougham. They sit behind the smartly dressed coachman as they bowl along the country lanes admiring the soft green hills and the fluffy white sheep. Grace insisted on having a handsome and cheerful coachman, such a contrast to grumpy Old John. Bertha is much improved. Since she suckled James all the rage and anger has left her. It is as if some urgent need of her body has been satisfied and it no longer torments her admittedly limited mind. I fretted that she would not want the baby to be weaned. I need not have worried; the process was accomplished smoothly by both baby and foster mother. Occasionally she takes to her room and cries for a couple of days but the paroxysms of rage are a thing of the past.

  She has learnt how to blend in with society. She is regarded as both a handsome widow and a kind aunt to the adorable James. Her Thursday evening entertainments are acquiring a reputation in the town. The food is fine and the wine good. Bertha says very little but nods her agreement with the opinions of the gentlemen. In this way she has won a reputation for good conversation. We have had to forbid her from playing cards in company. Her skill with numbers enabled her to win too often and too thoroughly; success at cards is not regarded as ladylike. Now she sticks to her embroidery when there are guests present. When Grace’s son visits, the four of us play cards in front of the drawing-room fire. We send the maids to bed early and secretly drink porter. Bertha wins most of the time and delights in demanding her small winnings. We pay her with what is in truth her own money.

  I blame much of her illness on her unfortunate marriage to Mr Rochester. It blighted both their lives. Bertha has survived but I wonder sometimes if all his misfortunes have succeeded in destroying his spirit. Jane is gone, his place in society is lost, his home is a blackened ruin and he has terrible injuries to bear. I am saddened to think that a man of such allure and vivacity has been brought so low.

  I have had to turn my back on the past but it still has a hold on me; it gives me bad dreams that wake me in the small hours. Clear as day I will hear my voice cajoling Martha into looking for work away from Thornfield Hall. At other times the palm of my right hand tingles and smarts and I know that I have just delivered a ringing slap to her face to stop her screaming from the pains of labour. Sometimes I think I can smell burning and I feel the heat of the flames on my face and arms. I have to get up and patrol the house to check that all the candles are safely out. The first room I go to is James’s nursery on the third floor. I hold up my candle and look at his smooth baby cheek and his little round arms and watch his sweet innocent breathing, and I grow calm and wonder at the good fortune that has befallen me.

  My resolve to cut all ties with Yorkshire lasted nine months. It was the thought of Leah’s baby that snapped my willpower. I set up an elaborate route through the lawyer in Grimsby to get a letter to Leah and arranged for her to reply through the same intermediary. I gave her some excuse for the procedure, said I was moving about visiting friends and relations. Even to Leah, I could not risk revealing my true address, although I knew she would guard it with vigilance. I was mindful that Jane Eyre’s wedding had been prevented by the coincidence of her letter to her uncle arriving in Madeira when Bertha’s brother was there.

  Leah wrote that her baby had arrived safely – a girl. The child was healthy and her family flourished in the clean air of their farm. Leah had little time for sewing now as she spent many hours in the kitchen cooking the good food that John’s farm provided. As for John, he was as happy as a king. He would be even happier if the child due next year turned out to be a boy. Every farmer needs a son – or two.

  Leah was sorry to hear about the death of Bertha, who had endured a most unhappy life. I was shocked to realize that I had deceived Leah along with the rest of the neighbourhood. She too now believed that the woman who jumped from the burning roof of Thornfield Hall was Bertha. I felt uncomfortable having deceived my young friend. There was nothing I could do to disabuse Leah of her mistaken belief. In a way it was pleasing to think that the story I had created about the fire at Thornfield Hall had been so successful. The later part of Leah’s letter contained some interesting news. There had been developments in the story of Jane and Mr Rochester.

  Mr Rochester had gone to live at Ferndean, where Old John and Mary looked after him. His faithful old servants were convinced that he could not bear to move far from the ruin that was Thornfield Hall, in case Jane came looking for him. In the summer Jane did exactly that. She was no longer a poor friendless governess; she arrived as a woman with an independent income inherited from the uncle in Madeira. She found her old master a much changed man, battered in body and subdued in spirit.

  What had not changed was the love between them. It sprang into immediate and passionate life like a fire from hot embers. Mr Rochester proved that his spirit had not been entirely crushed by his misfortunes and that he was still capable of bold and decisive action. A special licence was obtained – from the bishop himself. I was pleas
ed that he had managed to arrange his wedding without the offices of the objectionable Mr Wood. In the eyes of God and the necessary witnesses Jane Eyre and Edward Fairfax Rochester were duly united in holy matrimony. And this time there was no officious solicitor in the congregation to say that the groom already had a wife. The bishop himself had declared that Mr Rochester was free to marry.

  So, Reader, Jane married him. Well, that’s what she thinks. Grace and I are the only people alive to know that the body lying in the Rochester tomb is Martha, an obscure, silly and unfortunate girl. The words ‘Bertha Rochester, wife of Edward Fairfax Rochester’, and the date of her death, now deeply etched in stone, are a complete fiction. Both Jane and Mr Rochester genuinely believe that Bertha died, jumping from the roof of Thornfield Hall as the fire destroyed it. Mr Rochester witnessed it with his own eyes and Jane accepted the official version.

  She believes she is married to him; therefore she is married to him. Such a pity she could not have him in the splendour of his prime, when he had his health and vigour! An unkind piece of me thinks that the strait-laced Jane might prefer him now he is humbled and brought low. There is a self-denying streak in her nature that fits her to be the saintly nurse and helpmeet of a damaged sinner.

  I sit in my fine drawing room and look out upon the market place. I ring the bell and a maid brings me tea. As I drink from the fine china cup, one of the tea service that I chose and paid for myself, I work my way through the list of people that I care for and I am satisfied with how my plans for them have worked out. John and Leah prosper on their farm. If Sophie’s plans work out she and Sam should be in business in Harrogate. I cannot see the old sailor staying there for long, but I cannot be responsible for every detail. Old John and Mary will see out their days in comfort as devoted and faithful servants. I can trust Miss Eyre – or Mrs Rochester as I should call her – to ensure their work load is not too heavy. One blank place on my list belongs to Adele. I wonder how she fares at her expensive school and whether Miss Eyre, that is, the new Mrs Rochester, will welcome her back into the Rochester household.

  My list has a new name on it. I seem unable to stop feeling responsible for the welfare of others. The new addition is the small boy who was nearly bullied out of his tip for spotting me when I first alighted from the stagecoach at The Coach and Horses. He delivers Grace’s newspaper and is rewarded with a hearty breakfast in our kitchen; he is filling out nicely now. He is much better dressed and much cleaner. His mother makes no objection to our contribution to his upbringing; she has too many children to waste her time looking in the mouth of a gift horse. I have my eye on the lad as a companion for James, a sort of substitute for an older brother. Unless Grace’s son gets busy quickly James is condemned to be the solitary male child in a house with three honorary female aunts; it is certain that we shall spoil him.

  He will inherit Bertha’s trust fund, of course. We have not talked of it but I am sure that it will be the wish of us all. What a strange history he has already had in his brief life! He is supposed to be the son of a baron but has no right to the title. His so-called father offered his foolish mother five guineas before he was born. Grace bid twenty gold sovereigns for him. Now his natural father’s estate is in ruins and has fallen under the auctioneer’s hammer. Yet one day little James will be worth thirty thousand pounds, money that I picked from the pockets of my third Mr Rochester. The boy’s value has grown faster than mushrooms.

  I drink my tea and wonder about the fate of that other baby, Bertha’s son, who was snatched from his cradle by unkind hands. Does the boy survive in the wild hidden heart of Jamaica? He is the firstborn legitimate son of Edward Fairfax Rochester and so is the true heir to the Rochester fortune. The chances are he is a barefoot and hungry fugitive. At least he will not be cold; I know from Bertha that it is very hot there.

  I have done my best to be fair, to even out the injustices of life. I have plotted and planned and tweaked the strings of fate for many people but the boy in Jamaica is beyond my power. All I can do is to include him in my nightly prayers. My nightly prayers! I remember when my so-called prayers consisted of giving God a good ticking off for his unkindness to me. Now they no longer consist of outpourings of rage and despair but occasionally have a flavour of genuine devotion. As an independent woman with a comfortable income I find I am on much better terms with the Almighty.

  It was Grace’s idea that I should write this account of the events at Thornfield Hall. It would settle my mind, she said, help me let go of the past and stop my nightmares. Her plan worked; it is not so often now that the ghost of Martha appears in my dreams and points an accusing finger at me. I keep these pages locked in a drawer; one day I may feel strong enough to destroy them. If death takes me unexpectedly Grace has promised to burn them. The secrets they contain will go with me to my grave. Keeping secrets is a habit I caught from the Rochesters. You’ll not find a Rochester writing about family matters for all the world to read.

  Q&A WITH AUTHOR JANE STUBBS

  Who are your biggest influences?

  The biggest influence on me has always been you, the reader. Working as a teacher I soon learned that if the students were not interested, didn’t understand or preferred to talk to each other, it was my fault. It was time to think afresh, find a different angle of approach, re-arrange the order, and find some new words.

  When it comes to a style of writing I am a fan of George Orwell’s six rules for writing, especially as the final rule gives permission to break any of the other five rather than write anything barbarous.

  It is another George who has inspired me most when it comes to drawing character. George Eliot is a genius at creating believable human beings with all their strengths and weaknesses. Her work shows a deep psychological insight before that branch of knowledge even came into existence.

  How important are the Classics to you?

  I am not sure exactly what makes a book a ‘Classic’. My local library has a section labelled Classics. I sometimes find books there that I consider to be brazen interlopers. Try looking in your own library and see what you think of their choices.

  I was fortunate enough to have an education that soaked me in Shakespeare, Milton, John Donne, Keats, W. B. Yeats and T. S. Eliot. Their words are part of the fabric of my mind. And yes, they are all poets. When you want the maximum effect from the minimum of words, look to the poets. ‘Language ought to be the joint creation of poets and manual workers.’ Another gem from George Orwell.

  The nineteenth-century novel is my favourite form in the Classic tradition. The great exponents: Austen, the Brontës, George Eliot, Trollope, et cetera, use the rhythm of the narrative to bring a sense of order and resolution to the chaotic nature of human existence. I think we are all trying to make sense of our lives and to do so we turn them into stories.

  What inspired you to retell the story of Jane Eyre in particular?

  It could be something to do with having the same first name. As a child I identified with Jane’s rage and indignation at being such a powerless creature. I had to stop reading the death of Helen Burns because I cried so much.

  Jane’s few months at Thornfield Hall have always intrigued me. Charlotte Brontë makes it clear that the servants know about the mad woman in the attic. Alice Fairfax has a very motherly affection for Jane, so why does she not warn Jane that her planned marriage would be bigamous? What constrained the honest, God-fearing parson’s widow from speaking out? It was to answer these questions that I wrote Thornfield Hall.

  The subject of what the Victorians bluntly call madness also intrigued me. The more I thought about Bertha the more I could understand that she might well have had a nervous breakdown from which, with care, she could recover. To demonstrate that milder versions of such episodes are not rare I gave a couple of other characters a temporary loss of their usual composure. Mr Rochester runs mad with grief after Jane leaves him. Even the redoubtable Mrs Fairfax collapses when she reaches safety.

  What were some of th
e challenges you faced in attempting a retelling?

  For me, the great challenge was to be faithful to the original. I built my novel from the hints that Charlotte Brontë inserted into hers.

  Jane is a scrupulously honest narrator but she can only tell us what she knows. She overhears a charwoman and Leah talking about Grace Poole’s wages; she realises there is a mystery and that she is ‘purposely excluded’. She is distressed that Mrs Fairfax is cool with her on the morning of her engagement. Why does the kind housekeeper not congratulate her warmly? When it comes to the fire, Jane has to rely exclusively on the description given by Mr Merryman, the landlord of the Rochester Arms. Charlotte Brontë left a trail of crumbs. All I did was to follow it.

  The language was a challenge. Modern readers do not need the thorough and detailed descriptions that the nineteenth-century reader required. Through photographs, films and television we each have a much greater mental stock of images for writers to call upon. Nor do modern readers have the leisure to grapple with elaborate syntax. While wanting to be brisk I tried to keep the serious, and at times lofty, tone of the original novel.

  Anachronisms were a problem. I had to abandon ‘with the speed of light’; the nature of light was not yet known. You cannot put your foot on the accelerator. You have to touch the whip on the horse’s back.

  How do you see the relationship of Thornfield Hall to both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea?

  Thornfield Hall is a sort of iPad version of Jane Eyre. A tablet computer can zoom in on a particular detail, magnify it, turn it sideways, hold it up and look at it from below or above. I changed the point of view from Jane to Mrs Fairfax. Suddenly I had access to the third floor as well as below stairs. I was present in the house before Bertha arrived and after Jane left. There are a few characters I encountered who did not come the path of the governess.