Mr. Rochester(157)

All was lost now if I could not remove this last impediment. I scrambled for any last footing. “That—if a genuine document—may prove I have been married,” I said, “but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living.”

“She was living three months ago,” the lawyer rejoined.

“How do you know?”

“I have a witness to the fact; whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert.”

Richard. It could be none other, and damn him to eternity, after all that I had done for him. “Produce him—or go to hell.”

I heard Mr. Wood suck in his breath—such language in the house of God.

“Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward.”

At the name, I felt a shudder as if an earthquake had erupted beneath my feet. I clung to Jane still—I would not release her!—and I turned to face Richard. In a fit of passion I raised my arm as if to strike him, and he, seeing the movement, scuttled back away from me like a frightened spider. Pathetic, witless coward, how dare he stand in my way now? “What have you to say?” I demanded.

He, who had abandoned his sister more completely than I ever had, who had depended on my efforts for his living, could only mumble inaudibly.

“The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, what have you to say?” Goddamn it, man! Make this right—after all these years, you would not do this to me now.

“Sir—sir—” interrupted the clergyman, “do not forget you are in a sacred place.” Then he turned toward Richard and asked if he was certain that Bertha was still living.

Richard still shrank back, for he knew he owed me much, but the lawyer urged him on. “She is now living at Thornfield-Hall,” he said in a stronger voice than I could have imagined possible. “I saw her there last April.”

And she would have killed you, I thought, if I hadn’t saved your life.

Mr. Wood, too late, seemed to take my side. “Impossible! I have never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield-Hall.”

At that, I could not help a grim smile—to have succeeded all these years, to be mere seconds from happiness, only to be brought down by one who owed me his life. Indeed, this was not an act of man but one of God—Providence had checked me. I had never been anything but a sinner, and I was wrong to believe in forgiveness. Out with it, then!

“Enough,” I said. “Wood,” I said to the clergyman, “close your book and take off your surplice.” I turned to his clerk: “John Green, leave the church; there will be no wedding today.” Or any day.

Once started, the truth came bursting out of me, as if from a dam; if it had not been so painful I might have been relieved to be done with the secrecy after all these years. But in the moment my misery, my self-loathing, was too deep. As I spoke to those around me, my words were meant for Jane. I could not bear to look her in the face, she who had trusted me, and whom I had brought into shame. I confessed it all: I had a wife, and she lived, and knowing this I had still intended to marry another—yes, I was a devil. I felt like one, through and through. I tried, too, to have them know that she had been thrust upon me by my father and hers, without my knowledge of her family history of madness. I bitterly wanted to have them understand the nature of this “wife”—and in the end, with nothing left to lose, I dared to bring them back to the house to see her for themselves, in the flesh, for she was the greatest evidence of my desperation. And even as I clung to her with an iron grip, I absolved Jane of all knowledge or responsibility for my plan. “Come, all of you, follow!” I demanded, and I led the way back to Thornfield-Hall.

The servants, knowing nothing of the drama in the church, crowded forward to congratulate us, but I shooed them away and stormed upstairs, with a trail of bewildered men behind me, until we burst into Bertha’s private chamber. Grace, surely as shocked as anyone, handled the intrusion with perfect aplomb.

As soon as Bertha was aware of our presence, she rose from her crouch in a corner and uttered a ghastly scream that shattered the small group behind me. None of them had ever beheld such I sight, I’d wager.

“Ah, sir, she sees you,” Grace warned. “You’d better not stay.”

Bertha bellowed and advanced, and the men shrank back. Grace moved forward to distract her, but I wanted to face her myself. I was determined to give them what they’d asked for: proof of my marriage. “She has no knife now, I suppose?” I said.

“One never knows what she has, sir,” Grace responded. “She is so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft.”