Mr. Rochester(165)

Ames was able to find places for Sam and Leah and the scullery maid and the stableboys. John and Mary came with me, the only people I needed, for she cooked and cleaned house and John did the heavier chores. And, of course, Pilot stayed with me, that faithful friend.

I kept Mesrour, too, for a time. Though I could not ride, I loved to stroke his neck and feel the power and warmth of his presence. But he deserved a rider who let him race, and I was no longer that man. With a heavy heart, I sold him. I had the rest of my life to live with my regrets. Mesrour, and Jane, deserved better lives.

That winter I sat as close to the fire as my chair would allow, and I began to doze away my days. At night my thoughts ran wild, not unlike poor Bertha’s used to do. Often I wondered what, exactly, had been the agreement between my father and Jonas Mason. Given time to think, I imagine that Jonas may have noticed, even back when she was only twelve or fourteen, the early signs of Bertha’s illness. He would have wanted her kept safe, and that would take either a husband or money, and Richard Mason could not have been depended upon. A husband—a dependable husband—would have seemed a good solution, and perhaps that was what he had seen in Rowland. But Rowland, despite having brought Bertha into maternity, wanted nothing to do with her, or Jamaica, for that matter. And perhaps my father, recognizing an opportunity to bring a much larger plantation into the family, offered his younger son as a replacement. It was not the first time he had maneuvered to do such a thing. Of course, there was that long wait for me to come of age and to have an education, but my father would have considered the investment worthwhile, never guessing that he would die young and Rowland even younger. From time to time, I wondered what would have become of me if I had refused to go to Jamaica, but I shall never know that, and, as Carrot was fond of saying: You have to play the cards you were dealt.

Carter came often and tried to cheer me in his own way. Sometimes he read to me, though I was like as not to fall asleep as he did so. It was not that I had suddenly become an old man—I was still in my thirties—but the loss of my eyesight brought a lack of stimulation that I had not yet adjusted to. I could not escape the irony of my confinement there, in the same place where I had once tried to house my lunatic wife. I, too, was strong in body yet unable to care for myself, destined to live out a dreary life, trapped inside my own head.

But my friends would not leave me to my sadness. With warmer weather, John began rousing me for walks around the grounds. There was no orchard, which I had loved so much at Thornfield, but John would guide me to bend down and touch snowdrops, and anemones, and finally reach up and feel the hazel catkins. The earth was coming to life and, as much as possible, I was too. Memories came with spring as well: last year’s hopeful days, my fireside banter with Jane, our walks in the orchard, the sound of her laugh. That life was gone: Thornfield-Hall a ruin, Bertha and Gerald dead, I a broken man. And Jane: pray God she was safe.





The day was cloudy, as despondent as my mood. For how many years, I wondered, would I be moldering away in these woods? That was my feeling all that day, a grief that knew no bounds. Even in the evening it did not lift, and I took myself to my room early, but could not sleep. That was just as well, for my nightmares had been worsening: I was vividly haunted by a lifetime of sin and regret. There were so many people, irretrievable now, who had been lost and wronged. Not just Bertha and Gerald, and Jane herself, but Touch and Carrot and Alma and little Tiso and Mr. Wilson and so many others who had suffered, whom I wish I might have saved. Sitting beside my opened window, feeling the air on my face, I imagined the moonlight, and Jane somewhere, laying herself down from a busy day. “Jane!” I called out suddenly. “Jane! Jane!” And then, more quietly, “Oh God, Jane.”

I expected no answer—of course I did not. But, in my mind I thought I heard a voice: “I am coming,” it seemed to say, “wait for me.” And a moment later, as if the wind in the pines itself was speaking: “Where are you?” The sound of it echoed as if across the fells, though there were none near.

“Here,” I said aloud. “Just here.”

But there was no response, though I sat at the window for nearly an hour more. It was as if it had happened in a dream: Jane’s spirit and mine calling across some wild and lonely distance. I wanted to believe that it was a sign that God was setting me free.

The next morning I arose as usual to the birdsongs, and again the next day and the next, but nothing in my life had changed. It seemed that God had not, after all, heard my prayer, or perhaps he had more misery in store for me.